Adidas King of the Road 2011

Post raya run.. It felt so good to run again after 2 months. 

This Adidas King of the Road run is actually one of the 5 runs held across South East Asia; Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines. Each country hold the same run where the final run in Philippines will see the winner being crowned as King of the Road after completing 84km run altogether. I wanted to take part in all 5 (berangan!) but I missed the Thailand leg. Singapore’s leg was held in Ramadhan, and then no friends wanted to participate in the Indonesian and Philippines leg. So I ran the Malaysian leg only lah.

I liked the fact that we ran on a new route. Starting in front of Sunway Pyramid and running on NPE highway was refreshing. I personally think sometimes we need a change once in a while. Seeing all those new sights while running give a boost on the motivation, well at least for me. The usual Dataran Merdeka route can be de-motivating because you know what’s coming up next already.

My sister told me to wake up at 4.30am to get ready as she planned to get out of the house at 5am. I slept quite late the night before, and I forgot to set up the alarm, so yeah... I woke up late. In fact, she had to wake me up. Like someone’s already late for work, I rushed to the bathroom and done within 5 minutes. Hahaha... But eventually, we went out at around 5.15am. 

 

Picked up my sister’s friends and off we drove to MRR2. The NPE highway was closed starting from 3am so we opted for KESAS. Made a pit stop at Awan Besar R&R to fill the petrol and performed our Subuh prayers. We reached Bandar Sunway at around 6.15am. The roads leading to Sunway Pyramid was already jammed up. After a lot of turns here and there, we managed to park our car in front of Sunway Pyramid Tower. 

our parking agong spot

We thought we were lucky to get that spot because it was very near to the starting point. Kinda like parking agong la. Hahaha... Turned out when we wanted to go back, the hotel staff demanded RM10 from us. The spot was actually the valet parking area. Pfttt.

The turnout was great. The starting line was already filled up with thousands of people. It was colourful as the running vest came in a few different colours. I got the yellow/white one. 

 

We started the run at 6.45am for the 16.8km category. It started slowly as there were too many runners. Right after I reached the PJS5 toll, I started to walk-jog-run; the result of 2 months of zero exercise and excessive raya foods. -_- 

The highway route was quite challenging as it’s a combination of flat and hilly course. Not a real hill, but there’s a number of elevated parts and flyovers.

The highway was closed from 3am to 11am. When I passed by the housing areas, I saw cars being diverted to other routes and it was quite jammed up. They must sumpah seranah us the runners. Well, if you can't beat 'em.. join 'em. Join us next year! Haha..

I reached the finishing line in 2 hours 30 minutes. Ughhh!!!

Seriously gotta improve my timing. Gotta start hitting the threadmill more after this. I have 2 half marathons before going for my maiden full marathon next month. *gasp