Penang Run at Bandar Perda on 11th January was the first running event for me in 2015. It is the finale run of the 3-series half marathon Penang Run 2014-2015. Even though it is called half marathon but there are family run and 8 km fun run too. This is my second time running at Bandar Perda which is near to Butterworth where I have free accomodation at a relative's apartment. We only started our journey from Taiping to Bandar Perda around 3 pm and we took less than 1 hour to reach our destination to collect our running vest. Only running vest, bib with timing chip and 4 miserable pins were given. The organiser even cut cost by skipping the pins by giving only t-shirt and bib without timing chip to fun run participants.
The race started at 5:30 am and I was standing at the last of the pack as I am prepared to have an enjoyable run instead of forcing myself to run faster. We run in the dark and we have to be very careful of the potholes on the roads. The route is flat and most runners should be able run their PB provided they did not step into the potholes and sprained their legs. I was not too tired after finishing the 21.9 km race even though I only consumed 1 pack of energy gel. After crossing the finishing line and in midst of collecting my food and drink I was shock to hear the announcement that Chuah Seok Wan was the fifth winner of the 8 km fun run. She was accompanying me to the race and I never expect her to win any prize. The prize giving and lucky draw took almost two hours to finish but Seok Wan was excited not because of the fifth prize but the rare opportunity to shake hand with Penang Chief minister who was invited to the closing ceremony. Seok Wan only took 36 minutes to finish the so called 8 km fun run which means she could maintain a pace of 4 minutes plus per km for 8 km which should easily beat most serious runners. So I am sure the distance for fun run is only 5 km which comes to a pace of 7 plus minutes per km which is within the running pace of Seok Wan.
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Seok Wan's first winning medal, 5th place in 8 km fun run |
Those runners who took part and finished 3 series of the half marathons were given finisher's tee. They would have collected a complete set of 3 medals to form an impressive cube. I managed to get two medals without the finisher's tee as I only registered for two runs. I will definitely register for the combo run if there is a similar Penang Run this year.
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Medal from Seberang Perai Utara missing |
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