On the night most serious runners were in Putrajaya running the Shape Night Race, i was halfway across the Valley running another smaller race.
About a month ago, a few days after the closing date, my wife and I signed up for the Tropicana Nite Race IV. This race was 8.5 km on buggy tracks across one of the best golf courses in the city. I signed up mainly as a warm up for the Adidas King of the Road in October, and probably to put my end to my lack of serious exercise lately.
90 minutes before the start of the race, we were on the way and it started raining heavily. Pouring. I wasn’t really worried. These downpours don’t last long. Besides, running after the rain is always better than a hot sticky evening. Sure enough by the time we got to the golf club, it had reduced down to a slight drizzle.
It was a small race, about 200 participants over 3 age categories (men and women) and a family category. We had to wait around a long time coz the race was delayed about 35 minutes ‘to wait for latecomers stuck in the traffic jam’. I thought this was unnecesary, if people are late, they start late. This late start would affect many of the runners later in the race, as we would discover later on.
Anyway after a lot of announcements, the different categories were set off. My group, men’s 35 years old and above, were the biggest group, with about 30 runners. And we were off!
But as with my other runs, the first 2km were the toughest. As usual, i was thinking “Why did I sign up for this? I’m not going to make it. Can i turn back?” This was actually a tough course. A lot of steep slopes, especially the tunnels going under roads. I had recently riden on the track on buggy, i don’t remember it being so tough. After all, if an electric buggy can climb the slopes, it can’t be that steep, can it?
The other thing that bothered me were my legs were stiff from my my 3km run in the gym the day before. I didn’t really go all out in the gym, but still i felt the effects in my run. It was only after 5km at about the halfway mark I could get some stride going. Then another problem hit – it started to drizzle. A light drizzle, but had we started on time, we would have avoided this.
But anyway, with my stiff calves and heels and the rain, i completed the run in about an hour.
After the run, I was happy and relieved. The rain made it cooling to run, but made the slopes slippery. Night runs are cooler than morning runs, but you’re tired even if you don’t exert yourself all day. But still, it was a good run.