4# The KL Marathon & Moving Forward

I arrived from Labuan at the LCCT airport alone and took a bus ride to KL Central to participate in my fourth marathon in my lifetime, I failed to break my previous personal best time which was 3 hours 59 minutes, and instead finish on 4 hours 21 minutes, 3 minutes behind my first marathon finish time in Putra Jaya.

I was not in my prime condition to run, because I was tired when I have arrived and can't find any adequate time and place to rest. Most of the hotels are fully book, I run up and down the city to find a place to stay and finally managed to check-in at a budget hotel, that was not so pleasant because of the cigarette smell in the room. I can hardly sleep on the hotel and I wish I had just sleep at Dataran Merdeka instead. I didn't have enough rest that night before the race. I was clearly tired.

The race started at 3am. I can see several Kenyans on the front of starting line they were sweating and that indicates they have a good warm up session before the race and I have not. The race took off and I quickly saw the Kenyans and most of the elite runners fade into the distance. I also started too fast for the run, I followed a 3:30 pacer, a huge leap for a 4 hour finisher. I only managed to follow Cap' Rozmi for 10km, and quickly fall behind due to fatigue and early speed on the run. I drank too much water during the race, I was drinking water for almost every 3km during the marathon and it makes me heavier than usual compared to my previous marathon in Borneo International Marathon 2012, I only stop 3 times at the water stations for a drink. It was night time and the temperature suppose to be cool enough to cool our body heat and keep drinking water to a minimum. Maybe the taste of 100 plus is so addictive.

When things started to slow down, problems arises, my left quadruples started to cramp after 20km on the road. Sometime along the run, I lost my will to run, and I started walking a lot after the second half of the run. However meeting with a fellow runner from UPNM managed to lift my spirits up as we managed to chat up a little bit and encourage each other to finish the run, we are just mere mortals after all. After 30km into the run, my calves started to cramp after going through the hills of the last 10km of the marathon. At that moment, I knew exactly why most of the runners afraid of the final hills in the KL Marathon.

Finally reaching the heart of the KL, I started to see thousands of runners mostly 10k fun run participants and most of them were walking. That moment, when I reach the final 2km of the run, I ignore the pain and start running at a faster pace to reach the finish. I saw the clock on the finish line, I was relieved that I still managed to finish early than my Penang Bridge Marathon time which was 4hours 40 plus minutes.

Maybe I am going to take a break from running for a while and enjoy other parts of life first. As I was rushing to bathe and checking out of the hotel and find my way to the nearest train station and queuing up I collapse in the middle of the crowd of runners who are also trying to get a train ride out of Masjid Jamek and at that moment, I was in a deep trouble, no friends, no support, just me alone unconscious. I taught I was going to die. I was lucky to be able to write this blog today. Maybe I should not be a forever alone type of guy especially when I was not "prepared". At least I got the experience of fainting for the first time. And I finally able to write this blog after 2 months. I was lazy, and I am not sorry.

At the moment I am having a really fun time riding fixed gear bicycle. I use it to commute to my workplace which was 8km away from my home. Maybe I will write a blog about my "fixie". Still moving forward with life and anticipating my next Marathon which will be held on the iconic Penang Bridge this November.

Untill then, Happy Running.