NB Pacesetters 15KM Race Report

It was a morning with beautiful weather, cool breeze blowing and nearly raining when I reached Putrajaya on 6am. I am looking forwards my first race in rain. Warming up by slow jogging on the long stretch of road in front of POJ, used the toilet, and the race is about to flag off. And out of certain, the clouds were blown away and the cool breeze stopped. En Rustam flag off the race for all categories by 6:30am at once, and we all off from the crowded starting line.

Map from Garmin Connect records

Pace records

My target pace would be 6:15/km, and complete this race by 1:34. After 2 weeks of weekdays tempo runs with 6:10/km pace, my body are now kind of adopted and felt good on about 6min/km pace. As the race course is widely opened, I kept myself comfortably at the mid pack of all runners without feeling too clamped. Once the mid pack started to ease up at about the 2nd kilometers (some runners started to walk a bit, guess it may due to the certain change in weather), I pushed on and start logging sub 6min/km pace and felt good about it. I only stop-by the 1st water station manning by Dannie at 3+km, greeted by his friendly and loud voice. A good boost to my pace, although another thought came across my mind was the residents whom still sleeping in the Presint 18. Kept going with my feel good pace. At Presint 4 roundabout, I saw some elite runners already turned and heading back to finish line on the bridge.



Courtesy of QQ's sNaP



After climbed the bridge, I entered the Presint 5 and rounding the hilly Putrajaya International Convention Centre. Pushed all the way to the second water station, gulped in few cups of water and Gatorade, then I felt my stomach twitched. Lucky the water station located on peak of the hilly Presint 5 route, I still managed to maintain the pace. Double checked my GF405CX, my pace will still a head of target for few minutes, so I decided to walk up the bridge after the U-turn. At the peak of the bridge, I restart my engine and charging all the way to the 3rd water station. Gulped in more water and Gatorade this round and surprisingly I don’t feel the twitch. From there, I maintained at 6min/km pace all the way until the Finish line and cross the line on 1:33’47”.

PACM prepared lots of watermelon, nasi lemak and even taufufa. The Gatorade and Nestle counters are there too. Thanks to the organizer and the volunteers, I had a good time on running in Putrajaya and completed my 15km target pace.

NB Pacesetters 15km Finisher Medal, front view
Think this is the build outline of the Putrajaya International Convention Centre

Finisher Medal rear view

The main difference I felt from NB15km from all previous races is I found that I am starting to enjoy the scene, the environment, the feeling about the race. Most of the previous race I joined, I am only pushing it thru hence the great feeling is not there. Why we runners love to take part in races? I guess I started to have the feeling of it. Running is an activity which you can either do it by yourself, or in a group. In most of the time, we are running alone, especially in training. Races are the time that we have lots of companions whom will head towards the same direction with similar pace. So, in other words, we not only competing in the race, we also united in the race. This is the thought I had so far for running and racing. It will sure change from time to time, but, the important thing is, I am starting to enjoy more and learned not to over push myself in the race. There are many more things in the races worth enjoying.

It will be less than 3 weeks from my first half marathon on 26 June. Looking into my pace in this race, I guess I am quite ready to handle this coming 21km. See you in KL Marathon.

Enjoy your races and running.