I am Tenno: Race review : Melawati 10K

A bit late this race review is, but not too late (sounds like Yoda isn't it?).

I first did the Melawati 10K back in 2014. At that time the race was only RM45 I think & it was the challenging route that attracted me to it. The race route was hilly, there was a long section of uphill, followed by a long, gradual downhill. & there's a couple of sharp rises, one of them was near the house of Malaysia's most renowned film maker, Dato' Yusof Haslam. Nevertheless, with this kinda route, surprisingly I clocked my 10K PB (road) of 48:32.85 (9.27km on GPS). I chose not to go in 2015 bcoz the fees had suddenly shot up to RM70.

Well this year I've decided to make a comeback. The route was just too good to miss & the fact that I did my PB there made it a natural choice.

Pre race

I chose to go to the start from Serendah. It was closer anyway. I got to the start pretty early, performed my Subuh prayers at the Taman Melawati mosque, along with some other runners. Then I went to the start & found a parking space pretty close to the start. I had my breakfast, a 2-finger Kit Kat. Normally for 10K races I dun really have any bfast, just some chocolate will do. For 12-15K races I'd take one energy gel right before the start. I went through my pre-race warm up, a short jog, drills & lower body stretches. For HM I'd include upper body stretches as well. Then I put on my race vest, have a sip of water & off to the starting line.

Start line

The announcer decided to delay the start a bit to allow some of the late comers to get to the start. While I dun really like this, but it wasn't my call. The race was supposed to start at 7.00 am but we went off at 7:10. Serious runners would be at the start before the designated flag off time, but it's the casual runners who usually fail to respect this. But I guess they're the majority, so... I saw one of my friends, Rudy at the start. He'd run a 21km just a few hours before at Shah Alam. This guy is a crazy mileage-gobbler.

The race

The start was into a downhill, so naturally it was very fast. I tried to stay with the front runners & take advantage of the downhill. After less than 1km I passed Rudy who told me he was still very tired from the 21km. Understandably. After about 2km the road gradually went up & the 1st selection was made there. My target had been to go tempo for the 1st 5km & up the pace in the 2nd 5km. After about 3.5km we reached the gradual uphill I was talking about earlier. I've been doing hill tempos at PICC to prepare for my 1st two races of 2016, the MPI which was in Lake Gardens & this. So I didn't really have much problem going uphill.

I was okay until the last sharp ascent about 2km from the finish. The organizers decided to put the last water station in the middle of the ascent, bad idea. The ideal position would be just before the uphill section or at the top of the hill, not in the middle of it. Stopping for water would disrupt my rhythm, so I decided to skip the last water station. After all I was okay.

The last kilometer is gradual downhill, but we had to make a U-turn to get to the finish line. I really hammered the last kilometer & when I get to the end there was only a few ppl there. I clocked a time of 52:28, good enuff for 30th place in the open category. Bcoz I'd got to the finish early, I had the Milo van for myself. Hanged around with Rudy & his friends, before going home. Job well done.