Siemens Run 2007

The morning was not that humid, so its ideal for a 10k race. As I reached the Bukit Aman carpark it was around 6.30am. The Sunday running crowd are starting to come in. While putting on my running vest and shoes, Wan Yew Loong appeared and we had a short conversation, then he is off for his usual Double Hill 10k run. Then Little Ant appeared and we had a short chat too. She will be running with Tony Quah aka the Mountain Sifu. As it was almost 6.45am, I went to do my morning short call and then walked down to Dataran Merdeka where the race will be flagged off.

As I was walking towards the starting point, bumped into PM1 which is doing his usual captim role ie distributing the race bib to all PM who is running the race today. Accompanied him at that point since he is on his own. The PMs start to drop in to collect their bib. Then my supposed to be pacer for the day ~ Zul appeared together with his wife. He looks fit and ready to pia for a 52min finishing.

Geraldine and fren appeared. Was surprise to see her running today after her run in Ipoh last week. Then more surpises for me.....saw Meng (Kenneth fren) who came back from Gold Coast for this run. He was back for a week before heading to China to teach English over there. It was one of his Uni assignments. Anyway he just ran a sub4 marathon in the recent Gold Coast Marathon.

Its time to report to the starting line and everyone were asked to masuk kandang but the race was delayed by easily 10mins. That VVIP which is Rais Yatim WAS NOT on time!!!!. Called yourself VVIP and yet you cannot be punctual. How do we the citizens of Malaysia give respect to our government ministers when simple things like being punctual cannot be upkeep. How can I expect you to do bigger things for the country!!!!

The race got started after that, but my pacer is way in front of me. After turning into Bank Negara he is no where to be seen. For this race I was wearing the Garmin 205 which I am using as a Virtual Pacer. Then I saw Penguin 2 Tan Khee Meng which is about 30m ahead of me and I decidec to use him as a pacer.

He was running strong and I was never near him throughout the race but always about 30m away from him. At the Jalan Duta junction I passed Geraldine which I believed is taking it easy. Until the uphill climb at Jalan Duta, I had the chance to get closer to P2 and even was ahead of him for a moment. But once on the down hill, he past me and again gained a distance of easily 50m. This continued when we reached the uphill climb along Jalan Parlimen and then the downhill stretch near the Lake Garden junction.

As we are approaching towards the finishing line where all the runners are required to turn into Jalan Tun Perak, I caught up with P2 and told him that we will finish together. He told me to go ahead if I still have reserve because he is actually slowing down his pace. As I turn on my turbo to finish, I crossed the line in 54min31sec.

I was pretty happy with my performance coz I have met my target of running a sub 5:30 pace for this race. In fact what my Garmin 205 had recorded.... my average pace was 5min06sec in a distance of 10.66km. This 10k race is an over-distance event. So if your timing is a bit out, no worries bcos it is more than 10k.

No complaint about the organiser because there are sufficient waterstops for all runners throughout the course. The post race setup at the padang in Dataran Merdeka was perfectly done. Lots of different drinks being offered to the runners (Penang Marathon organiser, pls learn from them) with well guided signage.

After the race, I had actually decided to use the Garmin Training Center software tool to import data into the PC . This is the first time I am using it, so am still figuring out how to use it and also what other 3rd party tools that can provide better integration and plot maps, courses , etc for my future runs and races.

So below are two charts that showed the course map and the elevation of the course plus my split time on every 1km.