Picture courtesy of Lynn Guan.
April 26 was D-Day to test my fitness level.
Like last year, we drove to Bidor in the wee hours of the morning at 4.30am and arrived at the town about 6am.
We quickly called our friend, Gary Goh to collect our BIB from him. Thanks Gary for picking up the BIB on our behalf. I ate 3/4 piece of Power Bar (never fancy this - I ate just because it's expiring soon!) and gulped a can of Red Bull. And I was all ready to charge!
The race started at around 7am, somehow I didn't run as fast as last year. It's probably due to a delay of finding my own rhythmn and also the increase number of participants. I was a bit lost in the sea of runners! I heard the numbers had increased to 1,600 strong participants this year. Wow! Good on you, Bidor HM organiser. You certainly deserved it!
After struggling for around 7km, I finally found my rhythm. I just kept on that momentum and tried to stay focus. After the turn at 10km mark, we encountered some undulating terrain. Surprisingly I found it to be tougher and more challenging than last year. Again, I reminded myself to stay positive and not put my thoughts too much on the slopes.
I think I did reasonally well for the remaining 5km as I was still quite comfortable with my pace - of course the downhill really helps!
I crossed the finishing line in 16th position (Veteran Category) with a time of 1:41:04. Despite a poorer result compared to last year (1:39:24 in 4th position), I am extremely happy as I know I have gained back my level of endurance after a short 3-week training. Of course there are more trainings to be done before I can say I'm ready for the 42km-challenge of Standard Chartered KL Marathon in June.
