Saturday, October 19, 2013

Larian Jambatan Sultan Mahmud 10K

 Whew.

Another 10k down the belt, Alhamdulillah. So last week, on the 28th of September, me and few of my clique whom were doing our internship in Kerteh drove all the way to Kuala Terengganu to join a 10k race. Since it's been quite a boring weekend here in kerteh, i think its a good idea to hang out at another place, far, but not that far that will cost lot of money to go to.


 My first official run in Terengganu.


Although at first i was a little bit not in the mood for running, but my friends convince me to sign up for the race. Although it seems that near the race day, im the one that overly excited to do the race. They were few categories offered, being 42km the furthest, followed up with 21km, 10km, 7km and 3km. Since IPT(Institute of Higher Education) has its own categories, we decided to tackle the categories, which sets on 10km of distance around Batu Burok Beach and the great city of Kuala Terengganu.

We arrived a day earlier to collect the race pack as well to get in our homestay. For just rm200 a night, we have a 3 bedroom with the capacity to put about 9 people in each room, 1 inside toilet and 2 outside toilet. Not to mention you get a lobby to watch TV and a very large kitchen. Just in case you want to stay long and cook.

One great thing about this race is the fee itself. For a runner-T, a RFID bip, certificate and finisher medal, i say, rm5 is more than worth it.

Raceday comes and i was the first to get up and refuel. 2 buns of chocholate bread, a bottle of lime Gatorade and  a Banana flavoured Powerbar is all that i took that morning. Gulping the gatorade first thing in the morning turn out to be a wrong move because i have been visiting the toilet, right until they flag off the 10k race. When they flag off about 6.45 a.m, i was still in the toilet, answering to nature call.

Because of that, i started late. But since we are using a RFID tag to measure our time, im not so concern in starting at flagoff. Not till the end of the race of course. The race begin and end at Batu Burok Recreational beach, make its way to the Sultan Mahmud bridge, halfway through the bridge only though for 10k, and back to the beach.

Although the race was commercialize as 10km, my Garmin Forerunner 10 seems to disagree. At the end of the race, it shows the whole track was 2 km longer than stated. So for a total distance of 12.2km, my time was 1.11.58 Since it was my first time doing 12k, it is indeed a new PR for me, but for 10k, ive managed to complete it in 58min. 2 min short of my PR recorded during Brooks 10k.


 My split timing for 1km.  Elevation wasn't that bad. Not as tiring as Melawati 10k hills.





Map layout with the rest of the data.




Crossing the finish line never felt better. Since im running with bunch of friends, it is exciting to go and welcome you friend who still haven't cross the finish. And since this is the first running event for most of them, it's good to see the reaction they have at the finishing line. Some were excited to finish the race, some, just felt tired as hell.


Felt good running in a large group.

Nonetheless we have fun, the course was great with little of hills, but the road was not properly close so it is a little bit dangerous from time to time. Although the race organizer promise of an individual time for everyone(since they are using RFID) up until today, there are still no news about it. I heard that they cant give the official timing unless you call them personally, which i'm not going to do.

p/s: my review on the Garmin FR10 will be up soon. probably after Adidas KOTR malaysia ends.