Larian Amal Seri Sinar 2009

No, the medal wasn't made of gold.

What a good run! My personal best time and placing in a 10km road race.

This morning I went to join Larian Amal Seri Sinar 2009. It was held at Taman Bukit Jalil, near the Bukit Jalil National Stadium, also quite near my neighbourhood. There are 10km open, 5km open and 3km family runs. The run was organised by Taman Bukit Jalil Running Club. All finishers would receive a finisher medal.

This time I was joined by my running buddies BP, James and Janice. No timing chip system was used. The run started at 7:00am. The runners were given a green ribbon before flag-off. This was the first time I ran with adiSTAR Salvation running shoes and used a heart rate monitor in a race. My target for this run was under 1 hour. I started alongside BP. The opening 200m was a downhill road leading to the Lebuhraya Puchong-Sg Besi. This stretch was quite dangerous as only one of the two lanes of the highway was partitioned with safety cones. Speeding cars were just metres away from the runners. Then a small hill followed. This was where I picked up a bit of pace and BP was behind me from here. After that, it was long downhill along the highway. What followed was a long and steep hill leading to the interchange of Technology Park Malaysia. I was running with a steady pace here. After I reached the top, I was quite glad because the toughest part of the route was now behind me.

Looks like I was leading the race, but actually there were more than 50 runners in front of me already. (Photo courtesy of Tey)

Then we turned into the junction to National Stadium. The next turn was to Taman Esplanade. This was a housing area without much traffic. This was where the location of half-way mark and the water station. For this run, I didn't bring any fluid with me. So, I need to hydrate myself there. I also picked up my half-way pink ribbon here. My time so far was 26'29". This is my fastest 5km time. I could sense I would be able to go under 1 hour for the race.

After exiting from Taman Esplanade, we headed back to the starting line. When I arrived at the starting line, the runners were told continue for another 3km loop. Basically, part of the remaining route overlapped with first 2km of the course. From here, I was running with a slower pace than the first half of the race. In the last 1km, I was pushing myself, as I knew I was racing against time to finish under 1 hour. In the end, I crossed the finish line with the time of 57'07" and place 83rd in Men Open category. I was quite happy with this time as I was told by BP later that the actual route length was about 11.3km according to Google Map. So for me to finish 11km in 57 minutes was really satisfying. (I think the real distance may be between 10-11km).

My average heart rate was 157 beats per minute and peaked at 171. In other words, I was running almost the entire race with my heart beating over 80% of my maximum heart rate, close to (and sometimes exceeded) anaerobic zone.

After the race, I looked for BP. He finished just under 2 minutes behind me. We got our goodies bag and finisher medal. Janice finished 16th in Women Open, 6 places shy from a trophy finish. Had she been training, I think she could finish in the Top 10. James finished the race within 1 hour 25 minutes.

Overall it was a good run for all of us. I was pretty satisfied with my run, considering I ran in the previous morning in the rain for 8km. My next race probably will be New Balance Pacesetters 15km in May. I am still considering other races before that. One of them is Bidor half marathon in April.

After the race, my knees were not as painful as my previous race. With the adiSTAR Salvation, the cushion support and the stability really helped me to run an almost painless run.