It Burns...In An Orange Way

The Runner In Red

It was the first free run for me. No registration fee was required (but which means no finishers’ medal for me). It was free, so why not? Donned in my newly purchased Addidas red running shirts, my Addidas Clima cool shorts and my new fiery red Addizero, I arrived at The E-Curve at about 6.40 a.m. on a Sunday morning on 25th July 2010. I got my free bib from Sarge Dann (my bootcamp instructor, who was also running on that day and therefore invariably gave me tension) and started doing the warm up and stretching exercise. The women’s flag off time was at 7.15 a.m whilst the men’s was 10 minutes later. Armored with my new running attire and powered with my specially handpicked songs categorized under ‘Power Run’ playlist on my iPod, I felt more confident than my two previous runs. With Bon Jovi’s ‘Have A Nice Day’ blasting away at my ears, I started off running at a comfortable pace. I was checking on my RunKeeper’s record in my iPhone and was quite pleased with my pace and time for the first 3 km. The disaster started at the 4th km. The new shorts that I bought began to chaff against the skins on my inner thighs. At first, I tried to ignore the ‘discomfort’ by pulling the shorts lower. After many attempts at pulling and readjusting, the burning sensation on my inner thighs became excruciatingly painful that I had to stop running and walked instead. At one point, Sarge Dann ran past me and spotted me walking. In his usual commanding demeanour, he turned his head and shouted ‘Lilian, don’t walk, RUN!!! Of course this happened in like 3 seconds as Sarge Dann literally ‘galloped’ and darted past I like a gush of wind. I did try to sprint and walk, sprint and walk doing my usual stunts. However, I guessed the pain was very obvious from my distorted face to the extent that a kind lady actually stopped and asked me if I were all right. Well, sympathy was exactly the right dose to provoke my kiasuness. I gritted my teeth, held on my fist and ran, and ran, and ran. When I reached the finish line (in 1 hour 13 minutes), all I wanted to do was to apply Vaseline on my inner thighs. My RunKeeper recorded a distance of 11.93 km (despite the run was supposedly a 11 km run) at an average speed of 9.59 km/hr and a total of 1043 calories was burnt (in actual fact, portions of my skin were burnt too).

The aftermath was the actual climax of this run. I went home with severe friction burns on both my inner thighs – literally ‘burnt’/hangus. I dreaded the shower for 2 hours hoping the skin would somehow cured by itself miraculously. When I went into the shower and when the water reached my skin, a streak of foul words and curses escaped my mouth! I was so tired that I slept until the afternoon. I woke up only to eat my lunch and then dozed off again. When I went out that night to watch Inception with Pinky and Grace, I had to walk like a crab with my two legs 1 foot apart from each other.

The Orange Run – Medal-less.

The sight of me walking as if I had just been gang raped 10 times in a shopping mall – Priceless.

A Big Hooyah To The Original Bootcampers

I Found My Shoe of Charming

I am a shoe queen. I have more than 60 pairs of shoes and I could spend fortunes on shoes, and shoes alone. So when I started running, there could be no better reason to start collecting running shoes. As I am very particular when it comes to shoes, I already owned 4 pairs of sport shoes (normal walking), 1 pair of rock climbing shoe (used thrice thus far), 1 pair of running shoe and 1 pair of bootcamp shoe. But since I started running (I mean serious business running), how can 1 pair be enough? So I have been searching and looking – I never like Nike, I really couldn’t pick one from New Balance as none of the designs are eye appeasing, Reebok is too old fashioned, Saucony and Asics are not conveniently available in Malaysia and that leaves me with only 1 option. In a span of 1 week, I have been in and out the Addidas outlet for a dozen times but, to quote Michael Buble ‘I haven’t met you yet’. One day, I was waiting for my friends to meet me at Pavillion and I nonchalantly but naturally walked into Addidas outlet. Then the time, the light, and everything else frozen and my eyes were fixated on this pair of fiery red shoes. I prayed that it was a running shoe I saw. I quickly asked the sales person and to my delirium, it was the latest and newly launched running shoes designed for running competitions! Did I need to say more? It’s a god sent perfect match for me! Then I crossed my fingers and quickly asked the sales person whether size 4 was available (I have small feet in disproportionate to my obese body). God really did answer my prayers that day and yes I found the perfect shoe in perfect colour and perfect size! Cinderella would be so jealous of me when I run in this fiery red magical shoe.

First Attempt at the SCKLM 10 KM -27.6.2010

Riding on the confidence of completing my first run, I signed up for a 10 km run for the annual Kuala Lumpur Standard Chartered Marathon on 27th June 2010. This time, I didn’t manage to lure John into running with me but I did manage to quasi-forced a friend of mine – Mike to do it with me. The night before, I only managed to sleep around 2 a.m. as I was very nervous about the run. Then due to my automatic body alarm system which was triggered during the World Cup 2010 month, I woke up around 4 something and decided to watch the match between U.S.A and Ghana. By the time the match finished it was already 5 a.m. and Mike and I decided what the heck we might as well go straight to Dataran Merdeka. So, with very little sleep and an extremely nervous heart, I dragged myself to Dataran Merdeka.

As this was one of THE running events of the year, the embarrassingly small crowd at the fun run was of no comparison to the crowd here. The 10km race was flagged off at 7 a.m. I turned on my iPod and started running. With a month’s training at the Original Bootcamp, I was running comfortably for the first 3km. Thereafter I did a combination of sprint, walk, sprint, walk and so on. I believed that the first water station on the route was somewhere at the 4th km. I was so kiasu that I decided that it would be wise for me to utilize this opportunity to sprint and overtook those who stopped to have their water. I was punished dearly for my kiasuness. By the time I reached the 5th km, I was so thirsty and dehydrated that I felt light headed. And the ascending route towards Lake Garden via the National Mosque didn’t help. Instead of running, I walked and did some pathetic slow jog on most part of that route. Then it was a long straight road heading to Bank Negara and I picked up my pace again. From a distance I could see the way leading to Dataran Merdeka. I thought the finish line was approaching so I sped up. Little did I know that we were supposed to head towards DBKL Building and then turned into Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman before heading back towards the finishing line at Dataran Merdeka. I thought I was about to sprawl dead on the road and then I saw my savior – water station! This time, I stopped without any hesitation and grabbed the water with beast-like voracity. I made a mental note to myself there and then that I must stop at each and every single water station in any race to avoid unnecessary sufferings. I had no idea how I made it to the finish line. Perhaps the water refreshed me and re-energised me and somehow I managed to clock in 1 hour 12 minutes for my first 10 km run. I went straight to the 100 Plus station and downed one cup after another. 100 Plus never tasted so good in my life. But in my frustration and impatience in queuing up for the ‘holy water’, I couldn’t stop asking: Why can’t they just use a bigger (I mean seriously much bigger) cup instead of the pathetically tiny paper cups?

After cups after cups of the ‘holy water’ I walked to collect my finishers’ medal. At that moment when I stared onto the medal, I made a more serious commitment to myself – I am going to collect more medals!!!

No car breaking in this time and the run ended with a blissful happiness growing in me. And let’s not forget about the high you get from the endorphins.

My First Fun Run

My first run was called ‘Fun Run’ – which was of course not fun at all, at least not during the course of it. It was the SetiaEco Run organised by Setia Alam. The distance? As it was meant to be ‘fun’ it was only 4.5km. Sounds like a piece of cake? I thought so too, initially. Being a sharing-means-caring person, I managed to persuade or rather ‘coax’ my exercise ‘bestie’ cum neighbour – John and two of my drinking cum karaoke (basically the vices) buddies – Vivian Viv and Cherrie Merry to participate in the run. The run supposed to flag off at 7 a.m. John and I were relying on the lousy GPS on my iPhone to locate the place – Setia Alam, where I had never stepped into prior to 5th June 2010. We reached there about 6.30 a.m. and after losing our directions for another 10 minutes, we finally found the starting point and holy cow, both sides of the road were full with cars and judging at the limited time left before the flag off time and considering the fact that it would not be a good idea to walk a long distance after the run, we were struggling to find an ‘illegal’ spot to park my car. We found it finally and after a tedious maneuvering of the vehicle (actually John did the final swerving and reversing as he was quite pissed with my parking skill), we quickly got down and pinned our bibs (I know, I know, we should have did it earlier) and chucked everything into the trunk. Then we had to wait for Viv and Cherrie Merry to park their car next to ours blah blah blah. We basically did our warming up by running to the starting point and we just made it in time there to hear the flag off horn.

The first 1km was comfortable and John was just about 10 feet ahead of me. Then, the 10 feet distance became 20, and 20 became 30 and soon I lost sight of him (I recognized him via his glaring red shorts). By the time I hit the 3rd km I was gasping for breath and asking myself: why am I doing this? Then I spotted this old uncle who was jogging steadily ahead of me and it immediately stirred the kiasuness (fear of losing) in me. And I hasten to overtake him…then another uncle here and an aunty there. I was physically tired and due to too much smoking, I was short of breath. And as if it was not enough, the rain started to pour. I had no idea how I finally made it to the finish line. I have to admit, the moment you crossed the finish line was simply, sensational! I clocked in 35 minutes for my first 4.5 km run! 5 minutes slower than John but I was just glad I made it. Oh, and apparently I was no.15 in the women’s category. I collected my finishers’ medal and man, it felt so good!

There were some sidelights to my first race – Viv crossed the finish line about 10 or 15 minutes later and declared that her shoe sole came off and she had to walk all the way back. Cherrie Merry clocked in God knows how long later and announced that she felt like puking. The best part was when we walked back to the car, to our dismay and shock, someone smashed Cherrie Merry’s front passenger window and Viv’s newly purchased Coach bag was stolen. Instead of the original plan of feasting on a sumptuous breakfast, we ended up in the police station for 40 minutes – cold, wet, tired, hungry and smelly. The report was finally lodged (no thanks to the inefficiency of Malaysian policemen) and we had a quick breakfast at a Mamak stall behind the police station. Viv and Cherrie Merry went back to the police station to record their statements. Needless to say, Viv and Cherrie vowed that they would never participate in any run whatsoever and they would just stick with boozing and karaokeing. John and I drove back and I just have this to say to John: Your shorts stunk!!

So I Started Running...

The chronicle dates back to my pre-running epoch in year 2009. I just moved in to a new housing area where a picturesque man-made lake beset on all sides by a decent jogging path was just across the road. Besides, I need to divert my post break up frustration somewhere. So I thought, why not jog? I started jogging, which was in fact more of a slightly-faster-than-brisk-walking-but-less-decent-than-a-proper-jogging jog. I did it at my own pace, time and comfort. It was an on and off thing. No serious business whatsoever.

Then came year 2010. When I thought that my luck had already hit the rock bottom, my life took a new twist….towards the South. To cut the crap, it was like this – I was diagnosed with a tumor at my pituitary gland, and apparently it is a macro one, and lifelong medication is waving at me while at the same time I put on 8kg and acne breakout revisited me after my teenage years…so I am basically fat, ugly and probably impotent. In short, the shit hit the fan and splashed all over me. But you see, I am that type of person when pushed to its limit would bounce back. And I did make a New Year resolution that I am going to live life to the fullest no matter what happen. So I decided to make the best out of the worst. And so I decided to run, seriously.

So the chronicle of my running project begun…