BIM 2010 - My maiden run in the land beneath the wind

I arrived about noon time at KK and went to the King Park Hotel (3-star, I remembered) to check in. I estimated the trip from the airport to the hotel was about 10km. The taxi coupon fare was RM30. Then, just about 30m from the hotel, the taxi that I was in, bumped into a Kancil in front that stopped suddenly. It was not a major accident, but enough to jerk me a bit. I thought that was not a good start to my first trip to KK.


After checked-in, I took a walk to the bib collection centre located in Community Hall less than 1 km away.


I didn't really get much sleep the night before the run. I tried, but I couldn't sleep. I guessed I was missing home and at the same time getting excited about the race. I woke up many times in the hotel room and eventually watched small part of football game before attempting to to sleep again. In the end, still I didn't really sleep.

I got up eventually at around 2:15am to freshen up and get ready. A bus came at around 2:55am to my hotel. There were already some runners in the bus, but only less than ten.

I arrived about 3:15am at Likas Stadium. There were already some runners there. The 42km run started at around 4:04 am.

Fast forward to after the race, I was too tired to wear my other hat as a photographer. Really wanted to, but I was too exhausted and the injury to one of my toes didn't help either. The heat had taken a lot from me, more than what I had anticipated. I had not trained under such intense heat before. I almost collapsed at the end. Losing focus at second half of the race, also caused me the injury.


The paramedic team at the stadium said they couldn't remove the blood under my toenail. After that, I met up Cornelius and then went back to the hotel to take a shower.

I had to find food quickly and then checked out of the hotel. My next stop, Queen Elizabeth Hospital emergency ward. I had to get the blood clot and the broken nail removed. The same toe had previous similar injury before and now it was completely busted.

Luckily I got the treatment that I needed in the emergency ward. The medical team injected local anesthetic on my toe and remove the blood clot and the toenail. They also gave me a tetanus jab as well. The photo below shows how the toe looked after one day. Not sure when I can run normally again.


In short, my first trip to KK had been a tough and painful experience. I couldn't really say I enjoyed the run. However, overall impression of the event and my trip was still positive. Therefore I didn't regret flying alone all the way from KL to KK for a 30-hour stay (that included almost 4 hours of running & zero hour of sleep).

I will give my comments on the event in my next post.

Until the next run, do train hard and stay healthy.