Just finished KL marathon 12 hours ago.
I went up to KL with Clarence first. After some confusion, we finally settled onto the correct coach at 8am. Bumped into a gp of SGrunners like Kayano, Brokie, Stardust, Deepcruiser, SV etc who were on the same bus. Later at the customs, we saw Aileen & Cooper. The latter was doing the 21km. This year's expo is less organised than last year's. Clarence who forgot to print out his confirmation spent quite some time retrieving his info.
Had lunch with Aileen & Cooper and coincidentally ran into Serene Seah. We joked that we seem to have an annual "gathering" at KL marathon i/o Singapore...hehe. After a long day, we checked into the hotel & slept abit while waiting for Joanne, Cheemeng & friend to arrive later at night. We retired for the day at 11+pm...with another 4 hrs of sleep left :(
It was a blessing in disguise that i booked the "wrong" hotel. I had wanted to book Hotel Noble but got Swiss Hotel instead. It was just a min's walk from the start point - Dataran Merdeka. The race day morning saw us strolling to the flagoff point at 415am.
Joanne's leg was still hurting and hence was worried she couldn't meet the 6 hrs cutoff (I vividly rem it was 7 hrs tho'). Anyway later on, i decided to accompany her run. U know, 42km is a long & lonely journey if u are in pain :)
The distance markers were spaced 5km apart until 33km when a board "9km left" was displayed. It was "counting down" distance markers thereafter. I din really feel that the 32km "heartbreak" hill that Tigger mentioned was jialat. The worse has yet to come.
At abt 36km, we could see runners on the opposite side of the expressway (upslope). However, we could not see where they U-turned. It was a long way before we saw the U-turn point. Good that it din seem so long once we crossed to the opposite side. There was 4km left.
We were done with the really heartbreaking portion & running upslope under the sweltering heat (29deg celsius). I tot i was gonna see the 41km mark...no lor. It's 40km! I was swearing under my breath but kept quiet in order not to demoralise Jo. Looking at my watch, we have just enough time to do it under 6 hrs. I looked back & gestured Jo to push on for a little while more. By now, we had caught up with Mark, an adventurer racer who was on the opposite side earlier on (while we were 2-3km behind?). The traffic lights just before Merdeka Square did stalled our timing. I then spotted Clarence & gang 100m b4 finish line. I stopped for them to take some quick snaps. Seeing Jo nearing. I checked my watch again & hurriedly dashed to the finishing mat...trying to make it under 6.
I clocked 5:59 and Jo just seconds behind me. Had a puking sensation as i stepped on the mat. Nonetheless, it was a gratifying run. Had Baskin Robbins ice cream to reward ourselves after tat.heheh.
Upsides:
1) Both isotonic drink (100plus) & plain water were provided at every 5km. More after 36km.
2) Sponging service (altho i din use it cos i had a cap on)
3) Mobile chip refund service (some volunteers went around to collect our chips & refund us on the spot)
Downsides:
1) Orange cones were sparsely spaced along the roads. Certain drivers disregarded the cones & rode into our running area. Can be quite hazardous if one gets too fatigued to watch the traffic.
2) No traffic police to stop the cars at some points.
3) Boring route. Roads and expressways *yawn*
