Bomba Run Report-10/5/08

The night before


Set my alarm for 6.05 am .slept at about 1230am , which is after my regular Friday nite Home Fellowship .

The morning alarm

Somehow , I didn't hear my alarm . Surprisingly ,I manage to hear my phone which is in vibrate mode when Adam called me . We have arranged to meet at Bukit Aman at 645 am for me to collect my bib from him .

Adam : Kenny , are you coming for the Asthma Run
Me : Yes . ( Just awakened by the conversation)
Adam : Are you on the way ?
Me : Yes , I'm on the way ( Still blur)
Adam:Where are you ?
Me: I'm going to leave my house now ( In my heart I know it will be another 10 mins before I leave the house)
Adam : Ok , I will wait for you at the starting line


Conversation ends and I look at the clock shown on my hp , Goodness ! It shows 7.05 am !

The rush

Looks like I have to rush to Dataran without breakfast . Quickly change and then rushed to Pdg Merbuk to park my car . Took my inhaler twice before coming out of the car . Straight away ran downhill towards starting line .Good thing this Parlimen road is going downhill. Passed by Rachel and she tells me that I'm late and Adam is waiting to pass me my bib . Arrives at starting point . Everybody is at the starting line . I don't see Adam at the front . Anxious but I head towards the middle entrance of the "Kandang" , look around and still don't see Adam . Vincent who is already inside the "Kandang" spots me and tells me my bibs are with Fook who is just 2 feet away from me and he is just taking photographs . Fook gives me my bib and helps me pin 2 pins to the back while I pin the front .

Another 3 mins to go

When all this is done , then only I gave my reporting card to the official with about 3 mins to go . Got inside the "kandang" , sees Adam , Frank , Lai and Choi and I do a bit of stretching .It was fortunate that I had just enough time for all these .

The race starts

I then rush like the rest from the middle trying to get a good position .Lots of human traffic. At the hill at Kenny Hill area after the Bank Negara ,I overtake Chen who was going slow including running on the grass ! Then after that was pacing with this C category guy but after awhile I didn't pace with him anymore as he was too strong .

By the way , this is my 1st time on this route I believe


Believe it or not , surprisingly this is actually the 1st time I'm on this route. Other times, I just didn't make it or races starts in different areas .I was trying to imagine that long Jalan Duta hill that Ron has been talking about and at last I 'm running on it today .It sure is tough because after awhile , Chen has come and overtaken me from behind and about 50m in front of me .

2nd wind

I wasn't motivated anymore because of the toughness of this course . Suddenly , another person was about to overtake me and I made it a point to follow his pace which is quite fast .I've gained second wind and managed to overtake Chen again after running for about 2 to 3 km with this person . With another 2 km to go , we were going at a fairly steady pace when I began to experience side stitches . Good thing this side stitches happened when we were going downhill at Jalan Parlimen heading towards Dataran .

P.R !!

I maintained my pace downhill and also ignoring the side stitch pain . At the same time , being a first timer on this course , Iwasn't sure where we were going to finish so I didn't on any turbo . With another 600 m to go , I suddenly saw Stanley and this was when I on my turbo to overtake him . A malay guy who was quite in front of me earlier was now within my reach with another 150 m to go at the finishing line at the field but then I didn't want to overtake him at all because I didn't want to have sprint finish to save my legs and I also remembered how bad I felt when someone overtook me at the last few metres in one of the races .

I also sort of estimated I was within medal position and my guest was spot on when I got 57th place and a medal ( medals are for the top 75) and timed at 51:10 ,being my first time on this course .