30k

To the person who found my legs and brought it back to me (see post below), thank you. It really helped during the GE30k run.

My legs took me down to the Lake Gardens at 5.20am, with plenty of time to warm-up and mingle before the start, unlike last year when we arrived 5 minutes after the gun went off and ended up chasing the pack!

This year, the gun went off a little early (according to my watch). I was still chit-chatting away when it went off, forcing me to cut short the conversation and begin running. As we went up the hill, I could still feel the 140k PD ride from the day before in my legs. Well, i wanted to see what it was like to run on tired legs, so can't really complain.

It took a while for the legs to warm up, probably because it was still in shock of going missing the day before. But once hit Jalan Parlimen and took my first pitstop, they started cooperating.

I settled into a steady rhythm, reminding myself not to push so hard at the beginning. Finished the first 10k in about 1h10m, a little faster than I expected but it was all good.

While the legs were feeling good, the tummy wasn't too happy. It was churning something horrible. I thought maybe I should pop into Lake Club to ease the tummy but that was too far off course and would take too much time. So I held it, afraid to even fart in case something undesirable came out! So held it I did for the next 10k. I figured I can try to hold out till at least the Petronas station.

Got to Petronas at around 2h15m. Thought I'd sneak in there but was caught by Mejar K. "Oi!" he shouted. "Pi berak ke?!" Sheepishly, I nodded.

Got to the toilet, and there was someone in there. D'oh! Had to wait. And wait. And wait. A part of me was thinking, "Dude, you've held it this long. What's another hour or so?" Just as i was about to run off again, the door opened. Salvation!

All in all, i think I wasted about 10 minutes at Petronas. But at least I was comfortable now.

At this point, the internal battles started. Last year, I had managed to run for about 22k before starting the walk/run thing. I was determined to go further this year. So at the 23k mark, I started debating with myself about when to start walking. On one side, I said, "Well, we've passed last year's mark so we can start to walk now." But then, another voice said, "Nah... let's go another km and see how."

Another km went by and the same debate played out in my head. Again, we decided to wait another km. This went on until one of the voices said, 'Ok, Jalan Parlimen is uphill, we'll walk that than sprint to the finish line." To which the other voice retorted, "What?! Are you nuts?! The legs feel good. There is absolutely no need to walk this thing!" The first voice kept quiet.

And so it was I ran all the way to the finish line. Finished the run at a slow-ish 3h44m, four minutes off of last year's time, but I was happy. Happy because I didn't walk (except at drink stations) and happy because I felt like I could do another 10km.

I guess if i didn't have the toilet break at Petronas and if the course was the same as last year's (this year's was slightly longer) I could have gone under 3h30m. But as it was, I didn't, so there's no point trying to justify the slower time.

Nonetheless, I'm happy with the overall result. I was initially worried I didn't have the legs for it but they didn't let me down. So once, again, whoever it was that brought my legs back, thank you...