A Pleasant Surprise in McD Run!

Race: McDonald's Olympic Day Run 2008
Date: 29th June 2008 (Sunday), 7.30am
Venue: Dataran Merdeka
Distance: 7km (One says 7.31km)
Why this race?
1. RM10 for t-shirt and cap, good deal! (Yes, I am greedy fellow)
2. "Olympic" marr... only once every 4 years!

Since this was a fun run, I invited my colleagues and my Sister to join the race as well. I was quite amazed that many of them could complete in honorable time in the last KLIM 10KM race even without training. I myself had not trained much in the last 2 weeks, was busy with the debate competition in public speaking class (and I hate it) and also because of menses.

The start was a mess, the reporting card was useless. Everyone started at the same time, neglecting the starting time for different categories, and in general it was 10min late. I want to salute a new friend I know from Chinese Cari Forum. She turned up early to run 7K first, and then joined the this race for another 7K!

The sky looked cloudy. Running under cool weather was nice but it was quite humid too. I felt my steps were heavy, not sure this was due to lack of training, too many runners and high humidity causing breathing difficulty, or the result of donating 300ml blood yesterday.

Since there were only 30 medals up for grasp for each category, I didn't put any hope of getting one (even though my heart secretly dreamed to get one), I just kept running and hopefully achieving a better completion time. Even though the route was only 7km, the Organizer still set up a water station in the middle of the route, a plus point to the Organizer. I believed I saw Haza, the Running Mom, at the water station, I was not very sure since I had not met her personally. Anyway, there were a lot of people at the water station, I decided to skip the drink and keep going.

There were about 400 runners in Women Open category (the bib number said so), but I didn't see many of them along the way. At one point, I was running closely with B1215 and even overtook her once, but soon she increased her pace and was completely out of my sight. I also slowly caught up with B1064 later, we were almost at the same pace for one stretch, but she geared up after turning into Jalan Parliament which was about less than 1K to the finishing point.

Again, I used the 'Ice Milo' psychic power to keep myself going. The Milo van always offers the best Milo drink and it is often an excellent motivational tool in the race (at least to me :P ). I managed to overtake a few runners from the same category, probably they were getting exhausted. When turning back to Dataran Merdeka which was less than 200m to go to the finishing line, I saw 2 Women Open runners ahead of me. I tried my very best and 'sayur' one of them, but B1093 was very strong, no chance for me to pass her at all.

I saw the Official handed a small card to B1093, that signaled a medal! I prayed very hard I wouldn't be the 31st person and missed the medal... and wow, I got no. 27, what a surprise! My time was around 49:32, I felt a little ashamed of winning the limited medal with this poor performance, but still felt very happy of getting one :P This is the advantage of female runners, and also need to thank many elite runners who have gone to Larian Bandar DiRaja Klang instead. This hard-earned medal will be one of the most precious medals in my collection :P

Same as previous KLIM race, my boss' boss brought us a hearty halal dim-sum breakfast after the run :)


Goodies:
- Olympic Day Run Special Edition T-shirt
- Olympic Day Run Special Edition Cap
- McD coupon (I got the French Fries coupon, it could be something else)
- Plastic made bib (2 pcs)
All for RM10 :)


Back of the T-shirt. Quite cool huh~



Starting point


Finishing point




Thanks Tey again for the photos!
* I need to get hair cut liao... the bangs is so long, feel so inconvenient when running


Rewards of <= 30th placing: - Medal!
- Certificate
- One notepad (but the title is 'the official McDonald's Champion Kids', kids huh?)
- 3 McD coupons: McChicken, French Fries, Sundae
- Impiana KLCC Hotel & Spa buffet dinner buy 1 free 1 coupon




Medal is quite beautiful, and heavy!