The National Youth Day 5km Fun Run: I Did It!

Yup, I did it. I finished my first running competition of the year. I mean... EVER. And the most awesome part about it? I had an absolute blast!

Woke up this past Saturday morning feeling fine and all revved up to go. And by 6.15am, I was out the door and on the road to Putrajaya.

But as usual, when you attempt to find a particular location in Putrajaya and/or Cyberjaya, you are guaranteed to get lost for a minimum of 30mins (It's in their town-planning motto, apparently). Which was what happened to me. But OK lah, by the time I reached the venue, things were all set up and I didn't have to wait too long for the start.


Oh yeah, apart from the running bit, this was also a work thing. Uh huh. I was also assigned to do a piece-to-camera for MHI. Nice.

So I started with the intro...


The camera then followed me as I was running... Power, OK?


As for the run itself, it really wasn't as tough as I expected. I took people's advice and stuck to my own pace throughout the entire run. Yes, I didn't run like an "anak kambing lepas kandang" when the starting gun went off. And even when girlie girls were passing me by in the beginning, I didn't feel the need to "macho up" and immediately "potong balik".

The result? I ran for almost the entire 5km and walked for only a couple of hundred metres. In fact, the race was 1km more than what's stated in the brochure (based on my ipod calculation), and overall I did that distance in less than 50mins. Pretty decent for someone who barely made it as a "belia" for this event.

The toughest part was the sun. Being used to running in the evening, the morning sun really zapped the reserve energy in my tank. And the bits of hilly parts were pretty tough as well for a "taman runner" such as myself.

But the feeling of finishing the race was pretty awesome. As can be seen here...

To your question: "Dapat nombor berapa?" No, I didn't get any "nombor" for the day, but I did get a huge amount of self satisfaction and a pretty nifty "sijil".... Woohoo!

Onwards to the Standard Chartered KL Marathon now!