On the 1st Taiping International Marathon

It was the inaugural event organized by the Bukit Larut Rotary Club in collaboration with the Taiping Tourism Board, or something like that... First registered for it a couple months back when it was still in the planning phase. There were some glitches here and there from what I observed, the group categories and such. When I first came across it, anybody above 21 years old would be lump in the 42km category and nothing less, to my shock! But after some emails and all, the organizer finally finalized the list and got myself and TZ registered.

The half marathon category started at 6am. A bit late compared to the 10 year old Penang Bridge Marathon (Heard this year they're flagging off the 21km category at 3am!) But anyways, as expected, the participants were really few! I suppose it clashed with a few other events in Klang Valley, such as the Siemens Run, the River Jungle Marathon and so forth. And for that, I didn't see a lot of the full marathoners around. Except for the Caucasian lady with specs who seemed to appear and won in so many running events before. LOL! Never know her name though.

Anyways. Back to the run. Or rather... photos of the route...

Hated it that there was a big chunk of it passing through the Kamunting Industrial Park where there was nothing to see. And it didn't help that the volunteers at the drinks station didn't know what's the marker. And I thought they'd know because there was no marking along the route until the 11th km. And the 16th km. Imagine my running and checking my time trying to estimate how far have I run. LOL.

So... I spent about 1.5 hour to reach the 11th km mark. Got my banana and started walking after that. Haha. But I always thought, apart from lacking distant markers, it was a bit annoying that the traffic was... well... maybe there was only 1 lane to start with, which was why there were more than a couple of occasions at the second half that I felt the cars were just brushing through my side! Scary...

As I saw the road signs bearing the words "Taiping Zoo" I was so relieved! Finally heading back to the town, I thought. And that was when I saw the last 5km sign! Oh hallelujah!

And so, it was only the last 5km of the entire route that I was running in some scenic route. King Edward School. Treacher School. I thought there's a King George school as well (or was I dreaming?) And a whole lotta other old ancient buildings like the Girl Guide's office or something. Didn't get much photos of those though. And later on we passed by the Taiping Jail, and the Museum too! Oooh magnifiques!

It got better as we reached the Taiping Lake Garden! The amazing well-known lake. I still prefer the outer ring road with the shady big old hundred years old trees though. LOL.

So anyways, I achieved my personal best here. Though it's like, so darn lousy comparably. But heck, I was darn happy to complete 21km in 2 hours 45 minutes, estimatedly. There was no clock around, and I didn't have any watches on, was just relying on the time on my phone. But that should be about the time.

We received a participation medal, which was given to everyone who joined the run; and a finisher medal, for all who completed the run. But of course, am far from being qualified for the qualifier medal, where half marathon is to be completed in 1 hour 45 minutes. Maybe in a million years...

Noticed I didn't mention anything about the other runners? I think there was only about 100 to 200 half marathon runners in the race. So, I was running almost alone throughout, with one running about 500m ahead of me and another one 500m behind me.

So with that, I proudly announce I was part of those who made it to the inaugural Taiping International Marathon 2011. YAY!