Bukit Jalil Neighborhood Run - Route Map Correction

Participants have to follow the RED Arrow running 2 complete loops for a total distant of approximately 7.5KM.

Taman Bukit Jalil Neighborhood Run 2008

Picture above - Taman Rekreasi Bukit Jalil, the "Missing Link"

“Hey, is there a Taman Bukit Jalil Run in May?”, “Who are organizing such a run and for what reasons?”

“Why I couldn’t find any information from any local sport’s web sites, newspapers and magazines?”, “They do not want anyone to participate?”

“Is it a scam?”, “I only heard of the IPOH KRI 10 miles Road Race for member only on the 4th May 2008?”

The answers - from my perspective.

Details of the Run

Date : 4th May 2008
Time : 7.00 a.m sharp, hopefully!
Venue: Taman Rekreasi Bukit Jalil, Car Park B.

Status: Registration closed due to overwheming response.

Background of the Event

Objective – Neighborhood, Friendship, Community & Fun

• To promote running as a healthy hobby for residents around this area.
• To promote more residents to visit and use the facility in Taman Bukit Jalil.
• To promote friendship amongst the frequent visitors to Taman Bukit Jalil.
  

Targeted participants – Non-Hardcore Runners, “Want to be” Runners

• Frequent visitors to Taman Bukit Jalil.
• Residents around the neighborhood of Taman Bukit Jalil, e.g. Bukit Jalil, Sri Petaling, Kinrara, Sri Kembangan, Salak South, Taman OUG, etc.
• Preferably “amateur” joggers, Weekend Warriors, uncles & aunties, morning walkers, future runners (currently non-runners), etc, however all runners are welcome to add variety and excitement to the event.

Promotion Strategy – Focus on Neighborhood, Surrounding Areas and friends

• Aggressively promote the event in Taman Bukit Jalil only because of the targeted participants.
• Through friends and words of mouth.

Number of Participants – Hopefully out-number the monkeys in the park!

• Planning for 100 participants and increase to 200 maximum if the response is good.
  

The Route – Taman Rekreasi Bukit Jalil

Picture above - the "Kindergarten Loop"

The route chosen by the committee for this run is the usual loops that we run during our training. This may not be the perfect route for a road race but we have to live with it because we decided not to venture outside the park. Since the distant of one round is less than 4KM, the participants have to run two rounds for the 8KM run. Below is a scenic photo taken at the "Lake Loop".

The planned route consists of an “FIGURE EIGHT” loop (but this figure eight is very much distorted so may be more appropriate to describe it as a double loops), and each participant has to complete two rounds of the “FIGURE EIGHT” loop, thus making the run very complicated and confusing. Because of this, the committee has to assign the 2 most capable runners (Ah Wei & Liew) from the group to man the route and supervise the marshals, in order to guide the participants on the right track.

From the entrance via Car Park “B”, the run will start at the “Space Walk”, less than 30 meters from the gate. Participants will run towards the toilet and turn right when reaching the T-junction, heading towards the Kindergarten Loop. The “Missing Link” is the road joining the two sides of the park, this will be the most busy road while every participant has to run along here four times, two times up the Kindergarten Loop and two times down.

When the participant comes down from the “Missing Link”, he or she has to run up the “Toilet to Toilet Slope”. This is the mini version of the dreaded Double Hill, the two existing wash room facilities were located at both end of this slope. Once the runner conquer this slope, he or she will run past the Children Playground towards the “Lake Loop”. It is a pity that we have to exclude the “Snake Curve”, the path descending to the lake from the children playground because it is narrow and winding. After completing the “Lake Loop”, the runner will be running back to the Starting Line to continue for the 2nd round. The 2nd round is exactly the same as the 1st round except that the runner will be running towards to the gate of “Car Park B” for the last 10 meters. The picture below at the left showing the finishing area and behind the gate is Car Park B.

The narrow and winding "Snake Curve" leads you to the Lake from the Children Playground.

Prelude

The idea of organizing this event was mooted two years back by a group of active runners in Taman Bukit Jalil. We have unofficially formed a committee to work on this event to ensure that it can materialize. There are some obstacles and most apparent is the date, we need to decide on a date before we can proceed. There are enough races to occupy most Sunday morning and fixing a date not to crash with any event is a challenge.

Beginning of this year, we have made up our mind to fix it on the Sunday, May the 4th, 2008. We are aware that the Bomba Fireman Run was initial schedule on the same day according to almost all runners’ calender. Since the organizing committee is all active runners, we are prepared to forgo the Bomba Run this year. However, it was pure coincident that later the Bomba organizer announces their event to be held on the Fireman Day, 10th of May, a Saturday.

By virtue of a Taman Bukit Jalil based regular runner, I found myself being included in the committee. However my contribution is very limited while most of the rest put in tremendous effort and time to ensure that all preparation works are progressing well. Our “Flying Fish”, John Chow who designed the registration form, planned and charted out the running route.

Ronny Yong & Mr. Ting (oops, is he Mr. Chan, I am confused) who actively recruit the sponsors and the “targeted” participants, together with Mr. CP Chan (who usually talk more than run), sorted out all promotional materials and most importantly secured the sponsors for the 200 plus pieces of finisher’s medals and the position trophies, enough foods, enough drinks, enough lucky draw prices (Hopefully I may be exaggerating).

From the progress, I foresee the event will be successful held with not much complaints and untoward incidents. My only worry is, we will scare away the native and the rightful dwellers of the park, i.e. the birds, the monkeys, the snakes, the monitor lizards, and the wild boar. The tortoises and the fishes should be safe because no swimming in the lakes or ponds will be allowed for this event. As the registration forms came in exceeding our expectation, Mr. Lim HS has put in quite some effort to sort things out.

There are not too many unexpected incidents to curl the progress of the preparation of this event, everything seems to go on smoothly (Maybe I am a bit optimistic). We have enough sponsors, both named and anonymous, contributing enough materials and resources to stage this event. We have enough participants registered to-date and in fact, we have to turn away many people that called up. If not because the planned & chosen route for the race will be too congested and overcrowded to accommodate the runners, we could have staged a much bigger event with two or three times more participants.

Everything seems ready now and we are keeping our fingers cross and waiting patiently for the “BIG DAY” which befalls on the 4th May 2008.

Last but not least, thanks to all the 200+ registered runners and the generous sponsors.

Shoe String Run - Kota Kemuning

Shoe String Run – SRK Kota Kemuning II
Distance : 10 KM
Date : 20th April 2008
Time : 7.00 a.m.

There are 4 categories, i.e. Men Open, Women Open, Girls and Boys for the 10KM run.

In addition, there is a Family Category consist of minimum of 2 family members for a team, and the team members must complete the 3 KM distance together.

On the event day, 20th April 2008

At the SRK Kota Kemuning II, the Starting Line - Picture by Jason Lee.

When I arrived at the venue, it was already 10 minute to seven in the morning, most of the participants were warming up in the school compound lead by the Fitness First’s instructors. The weather was fine with little cloud covering the sky, it would be a hot morning run for the slower runners.

Category A, the Men Open, was flagged off first at around 7.10 a.m. and I lead the pack followed closely by Daniel and a few young Indians men. After a few hundred meters, they overtook me and the gap between me and them became bigger and bigger. I lost sight of them at around 3 KM while we reached McDonald Fast Food Outlet. However there was only one more runner overtook me at this point. Since I could remain at the top ten position after 3 KM , this was a clear indication that the good runners were away at the Chinese Kubur Run or the Olympic Torch Fun Run in KL.



The route is flat and quiet with not much traffic flowing although the roads were not closed. There were at least 2 water stations along the way, I skipped the first one but took a sip at the second station around half way. The terrain was mainly flat and I was quite relaxed and enjoy the run. At the end, although my timing was not really good, I managed to finish at the 7th position which earned me one of the twenty medals offered for the Men Open category but missed the "Hamper". This is one of the best designed medal and it really looks classic and nice!


No cash reward but nice hamper for winners from position 1st to 5th. Good quality designer "Blue" T-shirt for all participants.

Picture by Jason Lee.

BHP Orange Run 2008

Waked up in the morning and found that it was raining quite heavily. At around 6 a.m. after taking a light breakfast and prepared to leave home, the rain was almost stop and the air was fresh and cooling.

Reached The Curve at around 6.40 a.m. and there were many cars parked along the road, I couldn't find a space outside and decided to park my car inside the Complex Car Park. Met the Taman Bukit Jalil gang at the entrance of the Car Park and everyone seems confident and ready to take the 9KM challenge under the nice cooling weather.

Two categories, Men Open and Veteran, were flagged off quite punctual at around 7.30 a.m. followed by the Women few minutes later. The last group, Boys and Girls below 18 year, was started at around 7.40 a.m.

The first part of the run was indeed very enjoyable due to the cool weather and mainly downhill. The uphills were gentle but long so I had to slow down my pace while taking these challenging slope. Overall the run was fun and enjoyable.

There were plenty of foods and all kinds of drinks (100Plus, Vico, Coffee, can drinks, etc ...) at the Finishing point. The event look grand with the carnival like atmosphere.


Pretty Girls

The Drummers

The Winners, Category Boy under 18.

The Winners, Category Girls under 18.

KL International Marathon 2008

2007 KL International Marathon is my maiden run since I took up running a few years ago. This is my second attempt and everybody expecting me to do well since I did a sub-4 at my first run.

One day before, Saturday, 29th March 2008.
Woke up at 5 a.m. and drove down to Ipoh to meet my uncles and cousins for the Ching Meng. Came back to KL in the evening and went to sleep at around 11.30 pm.

Sunday, 30th March 2008.
Woke up at 3 a.m., no time for any breakfast and rushed down to Bukit Aman bringing along a packet of powerbar and powergel each. Walked and slowly jogged down to the merdeka square after eating the powerbar as breakfast in Bukit Aman car park. Reached the starting line at around 4.10 a.m., met up with a few fellow runners from Bukit Jalil, did some stretching and checked in to the "cage".

My muscles had not been fully recovered after the 5 hours plus torturous ride at the Ipoh Fellowship Ride on the 23rd March 2008 but I still quite confident that I can finish the run within 4 hours.

I started slowly and everything seems fine, however I was slightly worried when I reached the 10KM mark. The time was more than 56 min,compare to last year the timing didn't look good and I was already feeling a bit tire. I started to doubt I could do another sub-4 after a successfully outings in 2007 (all 2 sub-4 marathons, KLIM and Singapore Standard Charted Marathon).

I was feeling very uncomfortable when I reached the 25KM, although my legs still OK but I felt some pain in my stomach. I knew that this will be my PW (person worst) timing this time. I totally gave up hope when crossing the 30KM point, how could I do another 12KM in 1 hour and 12 minutes with the current conditions, feeling heavy and tire! I started to walk, after a few minutes, Mr. Lee (Papaya) and Mr. Wu overtook me and asked me what happened to me. I wished I know what happen! I walked all the way for the next 8KM until Tan Ay Peng approaching me, he stopped and talk to me. I was feeling bad so I started to run again together with him, we run/walk for the next 4 KM until the finishing line. It took me 4 hours and 32 minutes.

There were around 15 runners from the Bukit Jalil Area Group taking part in the Full 42KM Marathon! All of us finnished within the official allocated time. We have one of the fastest in Ah Wei running 3 hours and 18 mins and one of the final qualifier Mr. Ting running 6 hours and 58 min. Well done, Bukit Jalil Team!

A photo of some of the Bukit Jalil runners, 8 of the runners below taking part in 2008 KLIM full marathon.

Am I crazy? Ipoh Fellowship Ride 2008

(Photo by Andy Yuen)

After attending the Pacesetters Club annual dinner on Saturday, 22nd March 2008, I had to rush home to pack my luggage for the Ipoh trip. The ride would be starting at 7.00a.m, this mean that I had to reach Ipoh as early as 6.00am. After loading my Santa Cruz Blur in my car boot, it was already closed to midnight. I was thinking to myself, shall I travelled straight or shall I slept and wake up at 3.00 am, both options would only allow me to sleep for three and a half hours the most. Since I was a bit tired then, went to sleep and set the alarm to 3.30 am.

Since I had already loaded everything to the car the previous night, I drove off at around 4.00am in the morning. It was a breeze to drive at this early hour as there was not much traffic. I saw a Ford Storm carrying 2 bikes at the back along the North South Highway and I had to presume they were heading to the same destination, hey, I was not the only one that is so crazy!

Met my nephew at the start point, and had breakfast at the kedai kopi opposite. Before the start, found the hydration bag's bladdder was leaking at the joint. What an unlucky (or lucky that it was no leaking half way). Threw away the bladder and stuck a 1.5 litre and a 500 ml water bottles into my hydration bag.

The ride was flagged off at around 7.15 am., slightly late due to the amount of traffic flowing into the car parks. The organizer, KRI, was doing a great job guiding all vehicles to the designated parking area.

I was at the back watching the riders slowing moving forward, it was such a great view looking at 600 plus bikers forming a very long queue.

The traffic eased up slightly once we were off road, most of us had to push all the way up the 1st hill because of the crowd and the terrain. Everybody was commenting that this will be the perfect downhill ride if we take the reverse direction.
After the 1st uphill, the downhill is very technical and should be very interesting if not because of the over-crowding. Almost everyone had to get down and push, only the front riders would be enjoying this downhill, I guess.

The only feeling in this ride was “up, up & up” The hills were killing and it seems no ending. The downhill was steep and muddy, I could hear the mud scratching between the bike frame and the back wheel, the back wheel was somehow stuck and instead of rolling, it skid most of the time. There was hardly any flat trail along the journey.

I was back at the starting point around 12:20 p.m. after completing the ride. The start point was still very quiet and I think most of the riders are still struggling with the uphill trails inside.

A long wait to wash my bike before loading it back to the car, the lunch provided taste delicious. After resting for 1 more hours after the lunch, straight drove home to KL.

Feeling quite tire after the torturous 5 hours ride off road and I was worried whether I could recover fully the following week for the KL International Marathon, I really feel that I am crazy to come here alone (My nephew met me at the start point) for this ride. Overall, it is a good and enjoyable ride and will be back next year.