The Brooks Half Marathon 2012

The last competitive run before Sunday's Brooks Half Marathon 2012 was more than a month and a half ago and I was looking forward to this one. Well, until someone pointed out how hilly this route was gonna be. Haha. I mean, the last two runs (Newton New Year Challenge & the Mizuno Wave Run), were the same so I was hoping for a flat route to negotiate a personal best.

Left home at around 5.30am and got there in 5mins. BUT parking proved to be a problem. Half of the huge main car park was closed for some kind of event, and by the time I got there, the other half was already almost full. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to still make an entry there, I had no choice but to park on the elevated divider. By that time, it was 10mins before the 10km run was gonna be flagged off!

I jogged into the stadium and used whatever time that was left to warmup. Must say that it was pretty awesome that we were going to start on the Stadium Nasional's running track. Don't think I'd ever been on the track there before.

As usual, I started from the back and it took a few minutes to get past the Start line.

The first few kms were pretty good for me, actually. My pace was consistent and there were no problems with the route. Well, save for some parts being rather narrow and some impatient motorists were basically harrassing the runners with persistent honking.

The first water station came after 4km, and after that point, the inclines came. Teruk jugaklah nak mendaki bukit. Haha. After a couple more hilly stretches to negotiate, I knew a personal best time was well out the window.

The worst part was the last 2kms when the bukit showed us no mercy. But with the stadium in sight, I just used up whatever will power was left as I felt cramps on my right calf, no thanks to the express warmup.

We got into the stadium and did one round of the track before crossing the Finish line. What a relief!

For a big stadium, the dispersel of runners wasn't that great. There was a long queue for the water and medal, and we had to go through the seats and narrow lanes to get to the taufu fah and watermelon (highlight of the day!).

And oh, we actually did 11+kms instead of 10. Personally, I could have, and should have done better. Ah well, on to the next run!