Vitality London 10000

We are not the only Malaysians running in the marathon

It is every serious runner's dream to be able to run in London Marathon but many including me will not qualify for it as the timing requirement is quite strict. But, There is still chance to run in the streets of London just like those London Marathoners did and under the same London Marathon organiser. The marathon I meant is the 10 km race held every year in downtown London. I had been planning to visit London and Europe and since there was a 10 km race in London which coincided with the date of my visit, so why hesitate to make it a go. I registered very early for the race called Bupa London 10000 which was later changed to Vitality London 10000 to be held on the 30th of May, which is a Monday but a Pubic holiday in England. Actually the 10 km race is a major running event in London and are participated by world class middle distance runners from England and other countries. Three of us from Malaysia and my brother Paul, a permanent resident of UK registered for the race. Paul ran for charity and he managed to raise 250 pounds for Breast Cancer Research. As for us we just paid a registration fee of 28 pounds each to participate.
We departed for London in the morning of 29th May and reached London in the evening on the same day due to a time difference of 7 hours. The flight was a direct flight but it still took 13 hours for the journey. I was not tired as I had enough sleep during the flight and ever ready for the run the next day. But Xin Yi was down with fever while in the plane and did not show any sign of improvement when we reached  London.  She had no choice but to abstain  from the much awaited event. It is real regret she could not join us in the run and also could not get the finisher T-shirt which would only be given after the race. We stayed at Paul's place at Brentford and it only took us less than 30 minutes by metro train to the starting point at Buckingham Palace. There were more than 10 thousands participants and we were divided into three categories perhaps based on our 10 km timing. I could see most of the foreign runners  grouped in the yellow category or the last group which only started the run 20 minutes later than the first group.

Just reaching 3 Km mark

We were standing almost at the last row of our group and not long after we started running the top runners were already running back to the starting point. Our aim is not to compete but enjoy the atmosphere of the events. There were many cheer groups along the way mostly from charity organisations cheering for those runners who run for their cause but there were many bystanders who also shouted and cheered for us. The whole streets of London which formed the route of the race were fun-filled with many brass bands from different churches playing familiar music to enhance the atmosphere. We passed by many historical buildings and streets such as British Parliament, Big Ben, Trafagar Square, St Paul Church ,10 Downing street and Westminster Abbey. We stopped at many locations to snap photo with those prominent buildings but we still did not finish last. Our finishing time is about 1 hour 18 minutes but we still managed to beat five hundreds plus runners. We were given our medal and finisher T-shirt after we returned the timing chip. I really enjoyed the race even though we were more of enjoying the scenery than trying to race with others. The carnival-like atmosphere brought about by the supporters, bystanders and the brass bands were really something to remember for a very long time. 

A nice finisher T-shirt and a medal as remembrance plus some food were given