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Woke up at 4am for breakfast but there was a stupid morning call at 3.30am. Breakfast ate some rice, nothing much. was really excited but not nervous. Its so exciting. haha

5am took the bus to the race start at the Indonesian Monument which is a huge park actually. thousands of people go there on the weekends and it was reallly packed. everyone was playing badminton everywhere and there were loads of kids flying small kites.

My sister was obviously very nervous and was very fidgety and kept wanting to warm up early. but seriously there is no need to. Just be relaxed and look around the atmosphere is great!! The warm up pics taken by coach pandian sucks! haha.

Race start was 6.30am sharp. really wide starting line. very very spacious and nice. Its like running a major marathon championship. Haha.

When the horn started, I consciously held myself back to try to do a even or negative split. I immediately followed the top kenyan women and settled into rthymn. after 3km, I covered some gaps with some indonesian boys. The keyan lady followed and in so doing, dropped all the other elite women athletes. haha. Me and the kenyan lady went on the the turning point at a comfortable pace. at the 6km mark, i felt that the kenyan was too relaxed already la. i think cus she win liao she dun want to push. cus for them they just want the money. so i went on and increased the pace as I still felt pretty comfortable. I caught some indonesian national athletes and could see the poland guy in front about 100m. About 2 km to go, i upped my pace one notch to about my usual 5km pace and finished strongly. It was a good negative split race and really really enjoyable!! Happy with the timing man. Timing was 33.17. My sister also did a great time and a personal best of 40.38. woohoo.

After the race, we mingled in the athletes tent and had a long long talk with Lee Troop, Australia’s top marathoner who has been to the last 3 olympics and is planning to go for his final one in London. He is 36 this year. and he runs 250km a week. one crazy dude. we got many tips from him. hehehehe. top secret. Such a nice guy man. and he got iphone. dman high tech one. Oh. also found out that Johan Jauhari won the indonesian nationals with a time of 30.48 mymy. crazy man. he is damn good!!

We had to wait a long time for the winners to pass out their urine for the doping test. Thus, we reached back hotel at like 11am. Took a quick shower and me and my sister went to the high class mall next door for lunch at Cafe Cartel. The expenditure there, allowed us 3 tickets for the long slide from 7 storey to 1st storey!! We decided to have a go. so we had to go to the 7 storey, deposit bags, put on helmet, knee guards and slide down the slide. it was very very fast and scary man!!! wah lau eh. We decided to give the last ticket to coach pandian who always seem very sleepy and this will definitely wake him up. tml he will go try it.

After that, went back to hotel and rest and slept a little till dinner. After dinner, me and my sister went with Devi to the high class shopping malls around here. Not that we are high class. haha. but she say these malls are for high class ppl thats why when entering the mall, must go through security checks. haha. Didnt buy anything man. haha.

Then, went back to sleep. Oh. My roomie Mr Bunting had to sepcial tour organised by United Nations Indonesia around jakarta. since he doesnt understand much english, i still dunno where he went. haha.

We woke up at 5.45am (Bunting had this alarm ringing at 5am which was such a nuisance but he didnt wake up). We went for a jog at the stadium next door. Apparently over here, the ppl start exercising at 4am. how cool is that?

Anyway went for a jog with Bunting and my sis. Bunting said he is running 1hour and doing 1hour of exercises. crazY! but i think its ok since he does 50km for his long runs. he says he does the 50km long and slow and no timing. anyway, i was surprised he started running at our speeds. I mean my sister 10km is 10min slower than him but he is jogging at our speed. We jogged around and take pictures around the stadium at this really comfy speed. I guess running is really a brainless sport and the way to be good is to keep running at slow speeds. its no big deal.

We had a 3 hours break in which i typed this blog entry and also slept for an hour before we collected our number tags at 11am. Coach pandian was also a participant. haha. Took some photos with mr Hem and also the myannmar runners. Met Jauhari who is also a triathlete who took part at the Asian Beach Games last year. great to see him again. Also saw the kenyans whom all look like twins and sibilings with their shaven heads.

Then, we had lunch at about 1 where we had a long talk by Mr Pandian for 1 hour. Talked alot about athletics in singapore. the importance of lifestyle. commitment, passion. blabla. very inspiring. haha.

Then we have another 1hr break before the race briefing at 2pm and route reccee at 3pm.

The race briefing was short and sweet nothing that we see at triathlons briefings as it was a straight forward out-and-back route without the need to illustrate the transition areas like in a triathlon. haha. so actually i found the race brief quite useless. Took some pics with the kenyans after that. I am wearing the same NIKE outfit as the kenyan. haha. the kenyans speak great english  and are super friendly. and i got quite a few tips on training. hehehe.

 

Next, we sat on a bus to survey the race route. It was a flat course and literally idiotproof. WE had to run on the busway. it is actually like a MRT for the people. Its a small bus travelling on a fixed bus lane which is separated from the usual road lanes. So imagine a bus just going up and down a lane without any traffic at all. see the pics.

 

After the race brief, I headed over to the mall next door by myself to just take a look. Its a high class mall which is also a residence above the 7 stories. imagine staying above a shopping mall! haha. anyway, they got this huge slide that spans 7 storeys. More about that in day 3.

Dinner was a welcome dinner. food was great with this soup bowl thing I snatched 2 of that. haha.

 

After that it was time to hit the sacks.

We had lunch at Breeks Cafe at Changi Airport. My dad, my sister me and dinah. She came so send us off. yay. haha. But she sent us off when we boarded the Sky Train to terminal 1. haha. Cus she had to rush for physio and massage at SSC. During lunch, i got a call from coach pandian he said “erh… Is that your sister coming with you ah? Cus I realised I was only communicating with you and I forgot the other person” haha. Quite funny.

Anyway, we checked in first as my sister wanted to buy some running magazines (but didnt in the end, bought a book instead). On the flight, I read my ebook on my netbook how cool is that?

When we reached, we had to wait for 1 hour plus because, no one came to pick us up. Quite bad compared to my experiences in Triathlon where there is always the liason officer there to pick us up. But perhaps Triathlon is still a new sport and is a close knit family as Coach Pandian suggested which I think is true. Cus For example, if we wanna race triathlon, the only place we probably go is Bali as no other states has triathlon. So officials from both sides probably know each other already. Whereas for running, every state got their own officials, and it gets messier.

We took a 1hr drive to our hotel. We were with another cambodian runner. I realised that he was Hem Bunting. He is really really pretty famous. haha. He is on wikipedia at least. Try wikiing his name and he got quite an interesting history. So honoured to meet him. and he is such a simple man which many runners from our region are as I came to realised. But yet they run so fast. really puts us to shame.

Over dinner which was at 8pm (1hour behind singapore), we sat with the myanmmar athletes. Very interesting conversation with Coach Pandian being very educative. Poverty in Myanmar. Good atheltes lousy government, good government lousy atheltes. at some 1980 sea games pandian got 4th. he gave his spikes to the champ. and the champ wore that spikes and won the SEA Games 2 years later. the myanmmar athletes got no TV, radio. if they in sea games, government give them TV. Singapore, we get 10k. Sigh. but they are very good. pandian say its the lifestyle. he suggest we go try staying with them during holidays. haha. the coach was a funny guy. rainer paul in myannamar could produce results, but in singapore 10 years no results. why? lifestyle according to pandian.

But my sister is very smart. she say there are 2 kinds of people who go professional. Those who are very poor and those who are very rich. The poor like they myanmmar people are committed to running which earns them a living. the rich – too much money, able to commit the time to training, usually the ang mohs. But for many of us singaporeans, we are halfway here nor there, and somehow no one dares to put down the books. hence, its also not right to criticise ourselves saying why these people can run so much faster with so little support. haha. quite true.

I roomed with Hem Bunting while my sister roomed with the myanmmar girl. Bunting watches the TV though he does not understand any of it. haha. very interesting. Its just like a picture box to him. and he laughs at the kissing scenes. Cute guy.

I also managed to purchase my SIM card to call back with the help of our very sweet LO, Devi

 

Posted with my netbook hehe