City Run 2009

My eyelids heavily lifted themselves up and rubbed them as I strove to wake up in the early hours of the day.

I yawned while I turned to look at the time.

6.59am.
*%^&*(*$%#@#$%&(()(^%#%$^%*#

My race is officially flagging off at 7.30am.

omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg.

Half an hour to wash up, dress up, drive there, park there, pin up my race no., and to get ready at the starting line.

So many to do so little time. Because I BLOODY OVERSLEPT on my RACE DAY. =S

So when I reached in front of Komtar, which is the starting point of the run, it was 5 mins to 'taking off'. I hastily pinned up my race number with one side still flying loose, ran to the starting point, took the deepest breath, tighten just my left shoe lace (cos I don't have time for the other side =S) and off I go with our CM's official flag-off right on time.

Running in a race like this is really fun and satisfying.

At the start, a lot of the seemingly energetic and pumped up enthusiasts will dash ahead full-force, in the aim of passing through as many runners as possible and be at the front to take the lead.

I just stayed at my pace, running steadily sturdy, seeing some of the satisfied expression of those that just ran past me. It is not that I did not want to perform my best, but through experience and advices, if I were to try way too hard at the beginning stage, you would see me dragging myself to the finish line.

This does not just apply to me. You will see why.

After around 10mins of run, I can see those initial-enthusiasts starting to slow themselves them while panting quite hard. Their footsteps turned smaller and slower, their head dropped down losing strength for support and gradually they decided they just.....have to stop.

See what I mean by taking it steadily sturdy?

This time it's my turn to secretly feel extra-proud, especially when I see that I am running past the young teenage boys that have such sky-high ego that ran with all their might at the first 300m, when they forgot they still have 8.3km ahead of them to be completed. ;)

This time around I did not have any interesting encounter like I did for my recent last, except for having to run under the rain for some distance.

On my recent last at Chung Ling High School, a student from the school was running tightly shoulder-to-shoulder with me, fearing any moment if I was one step ahead, he will have to face with any kind of bad consequences.

At any point of time when I were to be slightly back-facing him, he would accelerate to keep up with me. It's funny to see how he somehow struggled a bit to protect his so-called pride, cannot lose to a girl ma right.

After some while of keeping up, that guy suddenly turned to me and said in Chinese: " Hey, leng lui, you are half way to finishing line already. Add Oil." and off he went way ahead of me.

I was thinking: Walao how dare this young kid called me leng lui, it's like I'm elder them him okay. And I actually thought he looked really familiar too; I recalled and realised he's actually a brother of my friend from primary school with a catchy name, whom I have never met for the past 6 or 7 years.

How small the world can be.

Anyway back to the race I'm still running halfway through. Haha.

I took it really steadily this time, did not push really hard, but miscalculated the finishing line, and underused my energy, however, at the end, clocked in at quite a reasonable time, I would say.

But when the results were out, I was dumbfounded.

Really, seriously. Look at my ecstatic funny-looking expression.

Never have I gotten such achievement in distance running, at least, I did not have anticipated to get it anytime so soon.

I expected just a Top 10 and that will do me good; Top 5 will make me smile from ear to ear; Top 3, hmmm...I just won't dream of getting it, not just yet.

But guess what?

A scary 1st Runner-up trophy in my hands!

I think I actually smiled starting from one ear, went around my head, made the 36o degrees and reached back the same ear.

Happy! ;)

That means, my 4 days per week trainings, some naggings from my dad, (minor) controls in diet and etc, paid off! There were no monetary reward but having this trophy handsomely sat on my living room is good enough when I need to brag about myself a little to guests coming to my house! ;D