Race Report: 30 th Alor Setar Jogging Club Half Marathon

Date: 01/06/2013 5:59 AM
Type: Run (Race)
Distance: 21.45 kilometers (Own GPS)
Time: 1 hr 30 min 26 secs
Official Time: 1 hr 30 min 23 secs
Average pace: 4:13 min/kilometers
Shoes: Brooks Pure Flow 2
Route: 30th Alor Setar Jogging Club HM
Route link:
A tune-up race before SCKLM.

Event Information
It is a local event organized by Alor Setar Jogging Club.

Registration is manual and I register it walk in on the race bib collection day, after calling up the organizer a few times to confirm.

The race bib collection venue didn't shown up in my GPS apps Waze, that cause me some time for searching it. After come back I google and found the GPS position of Alor Setar Jogging Club to be 6.096049, 100.368862. (Thanks to someone for tagging this in Wikimapia link here). The GPS coordinates mentioned above is "latitude, longtitude". To use it in Waze, one have to type "longtitude, latitude", which is "100.368862, 6.096049".
Disclaimer: I did not test the coordinates and unable to confirm the accuracy of it. The day I went I didn't have the location, the apps brought me to another location which is not Bee Bee Park.

Even though not a huge event, but you will encounter nice and kind hospitality from the Jogging Club members.

Pre race
Skipped 22 km medium-long run on Wed due to leg tiredness subsequent marathon race pace training on Sunday and 5x600 m interval on Tuesday.
Continue with 2 days recovery.
Usual Carbo loading 3 days before race.

Race Day

0300- Woke up, breakfast (5 slices of bread, 1 pack of milo).

0400- Nap

0500- Walk to race venue, toilet (Toilet at T.K. Hawker Center opposite Alor Star Mall)

0525- Warm up

0545- To start line

0600- Race start

The road to race venue was very dark and a group of street dogs was barking at me from the shop houses area. I turn back and used the main road to reach venue.

A special starting point

Race Venue in front of Alor Star Mall

Casual and no hustle. Around 15 min to flag off.

At the race venue, didn't see anyone that I know.
An participant asked me to help him to take photo with a group of runners, only after that I know they are the Malaysian elite Baskaran, Muniandy and Ruburn Kummar.
At the starting line I also see Penang Forward Captain Lawyer Lim and a familiar runner that always train at Padang Polo, later on know him as Ang.

Half marathon started at 0600. A few runners took the lead. I started beside one of those Malaysian elite (later on I know he is Baskaran) and I was surprised they didn't speed up at the start. The few hundreds meter of starting was a very dark road (which is the road the dogs forbidden me from passing). En Baskaran suddenly spoke to me, "Sangat gelap" "Bahaya" "kalau kena satu batu saja..." May be he was testing my pace and my effort. After a turn they past by and took the lead and I never see them again.

Having pace with the lead group at the start, I got the feeling I might be going too fast. At 1st km, the pace was 4:05/km. Indeed, it was my fastest lap of the race. I decided to slow down. Subsequent km was between 4:12/km to 4:17/km. At around 7-8 km I started to pace behind Ang. His gait is light like flying. I tried a few attempts to go past him but he was fast, hence I just follow behind.

At one turning (the traffic light turn toward bridge) the direction by the marshal was not clear. We almost went to the wrong direction and the marshal standing across the road shouting the direction to us. The same situation happen at every turn, that we have to confirm the direction by words, hand signal, and confirm again. At the turn leading back to main road, we almost went into wrong way, and hop on the traffic light pavement which is very dangerous. It's even funny at the turning at padi field, I saw the marshal from far and he raised up his hand. I thought he was some supporter to give "hi five" and thus ran toward to "hi five" with him, he nervously retracted his hand and said "no, no, this way, this way". Which cause me to make another sharp turn. After the padi field the marshal show "go this way". But as I go I doubt, because two roads almost the same. I turn back and they were at a bit of distance and not looking at me. I resisted to running back to ask, and just hope luck is on my side to pick the right road.

The course is flat, with only a bridge at 10-11 km point. It's a short bridge as compared to Macau Matarathon one, but running down almost cause me another leg problem. I guess I have problem with downhill.

The route across the padi field at 18 km  was a surprise to me. After a turn from the main road, it was a nice and beautiful padi field along side. Everything turn to scenic and refreshing. However the road here is uneven and a bit difficult to run. I also develop stitches at this point of the road. To my surprise the pace at 18th and 19th km was 4:08/km and 4:07/km respectively, which is among the faster laps. It could be the 90 degrees turn from main road with headwind to the padi field road. The headwind disappear but the effort remain, which causes faster pace, also lead to stitches.

After the padi field it was the road to finish. Fighting with stitches I crossed the line.

There's no race map for participant, and I forgot to confirm with them location of water station before hand. To my memory, the water station placed around  3rd km, 7th km, 10.5 km after crossing the bridge, and the same water station on the way back which is around 14th km, and around 17th km . Taken 3 power gel.

In conclusion, it was a nice event to take part in. No hustle like in a big event.