On ADIDAS King Of The Road 2011

Oh well, the hype is all over! Everyone was talking about it, since it's like, one of the major running events that also attracts crowd who run less often in any running events (as compared to me. *ahem*). So imagine my surprise when I see the amount of people waiting at the starting line for the 16.8km category flag off!

I've decided to opt for a shorter route this time, for some personal reason. Sort of like, the closure of my running calendar this year. So 10km it was. Therefore, while waiting for the longer runners to flag off, I went up the overhead bridge to take some pictures.

And here's a video to further illustrate how huge the crowd is. And the video was cut short at just 1 minute plus, but I was quite certain, there were still runners heading towards the starting line after I came down from the bridge.

Met up with +Ant+ later, and headed to the starting pen soon after. I have no idea how long the 'queue' was gonna be for the 10km category, but for sure, it's gonna be looooong, until the under-pass of the NPE-LDP junction. We were still talking and looking at the 16.8km runners on the other side of the road when we noticed the people started walking. "OMG? Flag off already?" LOL!

And so we ran. Passed the lion head. Passed the smelly sewage, as how another friend put it. And started to pick up my pace. Sorta. The amount of runners in this run was just... speechless. We literally see runners on both sides of the road. But of course, the other side were the 16.8km runners who started running half an hour earlier. And with the theme of "Colours" this year, you see the different colored running vests! Pretty aye?

Reached 4km mark in about 30 minutes. To my own shock as well. That was already after we made a U-turn somewhere.

Passed by the 5th km mark, which was near to the finishing line (on the other side of the road). And that was when I heard the emcee announcing the winner of the 16.8km category. I was like, what the?! All that distance in just about 1 hour!! *amazed*

So we continued running. It wasn't all that hard after I passed the half mark. Went down the under-pass and continued all the passing the toll plaza and made a U-turn. It's not so often that I see as many runners at my pace. LOL! I'm postulating there were about 10k runners that day.

If you're actually confused, the entire route is like a big circle. We went to one end, made a u-turn, and continued to the other end for another u-turn (while the 16.8km runners made their turn further down the highway), and headed back to the finishing line which is where the starting line was.

The final 800metres at the underpass before I reached the finishing line... I thought they might've wrongly measured the distance or something. 200metres seemed like just half the actual distance. But who cared.

I crossed the finishing line at 1 hour 11 minutes. And bagged a really nice medal! Weee!~

And so, I shall retire from running a happy man. For the time being. LOL!



ps: found out later that there were 7.7k runners...