Why Do I Do This Every Year?

It has been 3 years running that I have signed up for the Standard Chartered KL Marathon but of course only running/walking the 10KM one. I am still amazed that any human can actually run the half marathon and the full marathon. My body was never made to run anything more then 10km for sure. 

2 years back I signed up as a means to motivate me to jog more and in the end I managed to convince Ee Von and Michelle to join as well. Unfortunately, Amy was working overseas then and since she was coming back that weekend, I decided to spend some time with her. In actually fact I never trained and was thinking I am not gonna make it.

Last year I again signed up with Steph, Amy and Ee Von. This time was motivation for me to lose weight before our wedding. It worked pretty well and even Amy was really into the running and we did it every morning almost without fail. As luck would have it, a week before the run, I sprained my ankle really badly and instead of running I ended up walking the entire 10km. I did it in 1 hour 35min and 23 seconds which is kinda respectable since you know I walked the entire 10km.

This year as usual we signed up again and this time again I was totally not prepared for the run. Amy and I have been lazy at our jogging with all kinds of excuses not to wake up and run in the morning. I did some but definitely not enough to go the distance. I wasn't even confident of being able to better my walking time of 2011. The night before I was bitching about it and really not looking forward to it.

Come the morning, we woke up at 515am, got ready and picked Steph up at 615am. This time instead of driving all the way down to KL, we decided to take the LRT from Kelana Jaya Station. To my horror when we reached the parking it was totally full with people lining up trying to get in. Lucky I am a serial LRT commuter now and I know of the back parking which we ended up parking.

Once again, Steph made us breakfast fit for champions which consist of Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich, Milo and banana. Look at the difference in size of me from last year to this year. That is the result of not training enough for 2012.

This time around, we didn't go super early like last year which we left my Subang house just before 5am. This time was around 515 and so we arrived to the starting line just in time for the start of our race. Initially it went pretty ok for me. I was jogging at a sustained pace of 7 min 30 seconds per km and at the 1st km mark I was thinking oh man only 1 km. However after persevering I thought I could at least make 5km before I died. However at the 4km marked, my legs were starting to hurt and I decided to walk a bit to cool down. I ran again after 5.5km for about 1km and then died again.

I was thinking OK conserve some fuel and then run the last 2km. At the 8km marked I decided to run again and then all hell broke lose. My left calf started to cramp and I had to stop. I couldn't even run the last 200m to the finishing line. I ended up finishing at a not so respectable time of....

It was only less then 5 min faster then my last year time when I WALKED the entire way. I think that is pretty pathetic. Next year must definitely train and go faster. Oh yea you heard me, NEXT YEAR. Talking to you Steph. Here is your proof. Haha

Lets see if I would get the certificate because Steph told me that if you finish within the 90 min mark they will give you a cert but everyone gets a medal. Since mine is 90min 51 seconds, lets see if I get a medal. Steph finished very respectable 1 hour 17 min, Amy in 1 hour 37 min and Ee Von 1 hour 38min. Ee Von had totally no training what so ever and she was travelling in Bangkok for 3 months. Respect to her.