THREE O FIVE

I didn't know it was that hilly! It was one of the hardest I had ever raced. DPC hill was no stranger to most of the runners here so I tend to use that hill for comparison. This route was as hilly as if not more hilly than the DPC water tank stretch and it was longer! Way longer! The hardest climb was the 300m stretch where 10km route merged with 5km route and there were few climbs like that. Tough until most of us had to walk! Hard earn podium! This race had no cash prize and it awarded trophy for top 10 finishers. That was the reason I signed up for, without knowing Taman Botani Shah Alam was that far and without knowing the route was that hilly. I kind of regretted when I looked up the Google Map for the location of the race pack collection and it told me 1 hour to drive. Luckily Don Koh offered himself to collect the kits for us and thanks Jing Jing for passing the kit for me! Million thanks! As usual, I reach 1 hour before the flag off. Met the familiar faces and saw ...

"It is only 30 seconds off my 12k PB! It has never been this close!" 11.93km, 49:18! Some said 12km! No PB and no podium but Run With Us was definitely a very significant race to me. I usually run pretty badly in the first half of the year and things get better when I start picking up in the second half year. It usually takes quite long for me to get back in shape, and for this year, it seems worse. The peaking process seems taking a little longer than what I expected. Sign of aging. Sigh! As usual, I treat the races before the goal race as tune up races. They are there for a purpose which is to test my form. I thought I could have peak much earlier but it didn't. I ran badly in the Seremban Half Marathon 4 weeks ago and it was quite a big hit to me. So, this Run With Us race was my 8th race this year and it was 7 weeks left to the SCKLM. By achieving a close to top form timing, it definitely gave me a boost in my confidence level. I arrived quite early on that...