October - The Month of Race Cancellations

I think if I said this October was the saddest month for our Malaysia running community, I think most of the people would agree. It was supposed to be my busiest racing month but end up I didn't get to run any races (only one 3km fun run in the end). All the races that I registered were either cancelled or postponed because of the stupid haze. One of the most important races for me, the SCKLM which was supposed to happen 2 weeks after my last race Cyberjaya Firefighter was cancelled too. Arggh... all my 16 weeks of hard work!

SCKLM

I'm not quite sure how I actually felt. I was actually not much affected by the cancellation compared to the others because I still have a goal race coming up in December so I don't think my effort and hard work are wasted but the sadness from the community spread like a disease. I was more or less affected by it. The SCKLM is one of the biggest running events in Malaysia. Many people deem it as their bread and butter race and some even set it as their only goal race of the year. Many of us trained very hard for it so it's not hard to understand why most of us would feel upset for this cancellation.

Couldn't run so we took photo!

Couldn't run so we took photo again!

Couldn't run so we took photo with a lot of people!

HRDF & MU

Not only the SCKLM. The stupid dodgy HRDF and MU runs were postponed too. It seemed like they were just not ready for the event and simply used the haze as an excuse to postpone it. This was the 3rd time MU run postponed their race. I don't buy it. The HRDF too, the race kit collection was a joke! When you thought you had seen the worst, a new one popped up! I couldn't brain it! I've asked for the refund and still waiting for it. We now have a new name for this kind of events. We called them the 3C events. First they CONVINCE you with their very high cash award advertisement, then they CONFUSE you with a lot of dodgy information and in the end they CON you! Convince -> Confuse -> Con -> Canasai!

Pacesetters 4x3km Relay

Fortunately, there was a small race Pacesetters 4x3km Relay took place on the same day of the MU run. I was lucky enough to be invited by Ronnie at the last minute to replace Nixson. Nixson couldn't make it to the race and since the MU run was postponed so I joined without hesitation. I replaced him and team up with Keith, Voon Leong and Real. But too bad we couldn't make it to the top 5 for the prize. We got 6th placing and it was like 1.5 minutes behind the 5th! Nevertheless, it was fun and I was able to team up with different people, which is a different experience and most importantly, the energy that I'd been storing for all the cancelled races could be released and I got the chance to refresh my racing memory which is crucial for my next few races! Actually I have not many races left. LOL!

Awesome team!

That moment!

BSN

The next big event after SCKLM was the Putrajaya BSN night run. It was a FM event too and I was supposed to run the HM. Many runners switched their focus to this run because it's the nearest FM to the SCKLM. People was hoping to run it after months of training! It suddenly became the big major race but unfortunately again, it was cancelled too due to the haze! Sigh! 4 in a row now! Record breaking!

Puma Night Run

Then it came to this Puma Night Run, my next biggest show after this streak of cancellations. I thought finally I could have something proper to run because the annoying haze had finally gone! They sky had cleared up for us. Same as last year, this year I joined as pacer together with Adele and Shu Wei, we were the 6km/min pacers. Everything went quite well from the beginning, the 3 months 10km program that the club put up, the preparation, the DDLY photo shooting, the training and even until the evening of the actual day, everything went on quite well. BUT ironically enough, right before the flag off, it rained!

We had no choice but to delay. Then the sky put a prank on us by stopping the rain for a while, the organizer thought the rain had stopped so they flagged off and we ran. Few minutes into the run, the rain turned from drizzle to thunderstorm! The race was then called off but we were not informed. We only got to know when we bumped into the other pacers. They told us the race was cancelled and they made a u-turn earlier that's why we bumped into each other. I was actually half expecting it already. It was a mess after that, the finishing line had gone, the arc fell down, no official time captured, no winner, funny comments and complaints being made in the FB. Pfftt!

DDLY photo is a must!

6min/km pacers! Awesome as usual. :P

It was supposed to be a fun fun race! Why you rain?!

Not sure what to say, what a stupid October!

What's next?

I didn't sign up many races for the rest of the year because it was quite close to my goal race already. 1 more week and I will be entering the tapering phase. 3 more races left! Next one will be the Larian Gegar HM which will take place in UM, the route is the Bukit Cinta hilly roller coaster route that I hate the most. LOL! Hopefully I can do it well!