First Race of the Year! (PSDC Charity Run)

Last Sunday (26th of July 2009), 3 miracle miler including myself took part in a small marathon organized by PSDC in conjunction with their 20th Anniversary in Penang. The route was fairly short, only 6.5km and it seems like goodie bags are our reward or motivation factor to make us run the race instead of having a cool morning walk around the factory trade zone.I know this marathon would seemed like kacang puteh to most of the runners out there but I'm would think otherwise. Regardless of what others may think, I still think that this is a race to achieve my miracle mile (although it's just 6.5km..) in a good time. :)

So I woke up at 6am (I wouldn't say I'd had any sleep at all..seems like I could not sleep at all before the race...maybe I was too excited or too anxious..mixed feelings perhaps..) and went to fetch Justin as the organizers encouraged carpooling. We got there at 7am and mingled around the registration booth while waiting for Syarizan, our new miracle miler member! Our first bumiputera member! hehe..

At about 7:15am, Syarizan arrived and 3 of us started warming up before the race. I took no breakfast, only drank milk + water which means not much energy for me. Last time worse, just had curry mee for my dinner and the next day I ran my first half marathon at Penang Bridge. :) The race started at 7:30am sharp when I started my ipod nike + to keep track of my race and my Street Fighter 4 soundtracks started jamming in my ears for the extra motivation boost!

The race started off relatively fast for me because my goal was to finish the race within 30 minutes so Justin and myself could make it to church for Lord Supper at 9am thus we have a mission at hand! Justin was following behind me for the first 1 km but soon dropped off following his own pace later on. Lost Syarizan at the starting point. I guess I'm all alone and it's all about speed. No strategies needed. Just run as fast as you can.

I paced myself at 5 mins 20 secs per km for the first 3km and after that I find myself slowing down a little to catch some air as I was running under the influenza influence...Thank God, it's not H1N1..:P I ran with a group of indians and with some hardcore running aunties + uncles. No matter how fast I sprint or do a fartlek, these aunties and uncles always seemed to be faster than me.Pai seh..(When I told my friend that I lost to aunties and uncles, they wanted to 'un-friend' me straight away)

There are 3 runners band to collect throughout the race although it's only a short distance but however, I guess there are many short cuts in that area. That's why they need you to have 3 gelang tangan if you want to claim their goodie bag. At the 4th km, I was given the 3rd gelang and I started sprinting because my Ipod tells me that I'm 1km away from achieving my new 5k record. (I set 5K as my distance in my ipod so I can gauge my time for my 5k run) After hearing Tiger Woods congratulating me, it dawned on me that I still have 1.5km to go for the real race. A reality check on myself, I found myself stopping and slowing down after that sprint and some of the runners started overtaking me.

Inspired by the spirit of Pia, I decided to give it all and run! Picked up some pace and overtook some of the indian runners. As I approach the finishing line, I decided to sprint all the way and I managed to clock a 36"37 for my 6.5km run. Insignificant to most of you but to me, it was mindblowing because I never ran a marathon to record any time as I usually run just to complete marathons.

After crossing the finishing line, grabbed my goodie bag and sat down resting and waiting for Justin to arrive. He made it at 45 mins and we just went off after he grabbed his goodie bag. Nope, we was not gentleman enough to wait for our final miracle miler because we have a communion with our Lord. However, she smsed me that she did it in 55 mins later in the night. It was a good run and all of us did it under 90mins! (That 90mins mark was set by the organizers in order to motivate all the runners to run below that timestamp if they wish to get the goodie bag..)

Next stop: Adidas King of the Road!

"Forgetting what lies behind, straining our hearts on the prize. Always keeping our eyes on our Lord Jesus and we're running the race to win. All the way to the end.."

May this song be true to both my spiritual race and my physical race. Amen!

*Note: Forgot to mention that the route was nice and flat.*