Lets talk about last Sunday. The ambience was OK, not as fun and upbeat as I thought it would be. Maybe I was just stressed about trying to get a good time, I dunno. The run started just as jam gadang di Dataran Merdeka berdetik 7 kali. Not bad lah. I tried pacing myself, running as I would during training. The last few days before the run, I didn’t train. Partly because I didn’t want to strain myself, and partly pasal mak tak larat dah nyah nak training.
Sekali, at the 5th kilometer (at the first drinking station), I stopped for a drink (actually two, hehe) and that’s where it went downhill. Bukan jalan tu turun bukit, prestasi larian mak merudum. Lepas tu jogging sikit, jalan banyak. Jogging sikit, jalan banyak. Gila gua pressure time tu, tapi belah kanan perut rasa macam senak. Lari jugak kang ada yang pecah perut. Tension gila. Siap jalan tepuk-tepuk tangan kuat-kuat nak bagi semangat pada diri sendiri. Adalah semangat sikit dan start running again, but then we reached the hill next to Bird Park. MashaAllah. Sangatlah jauh perjalanan naik bukit tu. Pressure lagi.
Then up the hill, I gained some strength to start running again. I was doing some good time I think, sekali sampai 2nd drinking station. Cheh. Start minum balik ni, memang payah la nak start lari balik. Started running again at DBKL.
Over at Nagoya, a man passed me by and said, “You’re doing good, keep it up!”. Pergh, terus mak semangat. I passed the finishing line after 1 hour, 30 minutes and 45 seconds, but that’s my time for 10.383km (since the run was for that distance) but my official time for 10k is 1 hour 29 minutes 58 seconds. Kekekeke. 2 seconds later, I wouldn’t get my finisher’s medal. I’m finisher number 1300++. Keji betul.
Alhamdulillah. Kak Peachy’s time was 1 hour 16 minutes (no ranking because she was running for a cause, bless her) and Papa’s 1 hour 3 minutes (400++. Dahsyat orang tua ni, hehehe. All the time he thought he was in the top 100, kekeke). Very impressed with their times, very jealous also, but training for my next 10k would have to wait at least 9 months. They are even talking about entering the Penang Bridge Run at the end of the year. I might enter a 3km fun run kot, tak larat jalan je lah kan?
But apart from the good things, a not so good thing happened during the run.
Ya Allah. I’m sure you’ve read about the 10k runner who collapsed and died during the run? Ya Allah, how do I start? I was across the road, nearer to DBKL side. He was on the pavement on the other side. I saw a commotion. I thought there was a fight, maybe some runners tried to take a shortcut or something.
Then I heard a man scream “Panggil medic la wei!”, and I saw a man, an official of some sort walking towards Dataran. That’s right. WALKING. And that was around 8:20 (give or take a few minutes). So reports that said an ambulance reached the scene at 8:10? That’s stretching the truth.
I stopped for a while across the road; saw what I thought to be a man having a seizure, registered in my mind that there already was a crowd surrounding him, why add in robbing this man of some well needed oxygen? So yeah. I continued running. I wish I hadn’t. For that man, Weiji? He’s my colleague. He’s a very fine young man. He truly was.
My last words to him was, see you at the finish line. His was, haha, I takut I pengsan halfway, tak dapat habis.
Brings fresh tears to my eyes each time I think about it.
Rest in peace, babe. See you at the finish line.
(Or maybe not)
