Sunday, May 23, 2010

Run In Memory Of Ngae Koh Hieng...

By Frank

This morning, an initiative to run in memory of late Ngae Koh Hieng was done by Wan Yew Leong together with Pacesetters Athletic Club Malaysia. The idea behind this run was to pay our tribute to the icon himself who sadly left us last weekend. I've attended his wake the past Monday but still am still unable to accept the fact that he is gone.

In conjunction with the memorial run, Wan has prepared a special running bib for all runners who has the option to wear it for a run to be done together although the distance and the route isn't fix. I asked for number 84 which they gladly gave as I assume that will be my bib number (as printed on my receipt) for next weekend's Sundown Marathon 2010 and I will be wearing it. I'm now in my tapering phase and I ran an easy 10KM yesterday morning. And with exactly no sleep at all since 8.30am yesterday morning (simulating next weekend's race condition), I opt to run an easy 5KM first around the Bukit Aman to bird park area before joining the others for the memorial run running the double hills route.

A simple but yet meaningful running bib...

The distribution of bib started at 6am and we had a 1 minute silence before we all head out to run at 6.30am. I wore a sarong for this run as Ngae was made famous by running with it together with his barefoot running style. I borrowed the sarong from Jasmine and the first thing I noticed was the flower design instead of the usual boxes. I asked her and found out that the design is for women. Hahaha.... No wonder. I'm not able to run barefoot but I guess Ngae will understand. Perhaps 1 day I will. Who knows right?

Running in a sarong is certainly not easy. My hats off to Ngae for doing it all the time. I started well with it, but once it gets soak in sweat, it sticks to the skin and movement became limited. I ran the entire double hills route with it and I was lucky it didn't came loose. Kind of surprise with how well I put it on. Hehe...

Anyway, I had a good run with the others although not everyone ran together. And since this is the final tapering weekend, I do feel better running 16KM this morning. And after the run, there was a mini pot luck breakfast where some of us contributed some food. I contributed some Gardenia Twiggies. Wan made his signature teh tarik.

I had a wonderful but tiring morning. Back home, it was laundry before I fell asleep after entering this entry. As for Sundown Marathon 2010, the final week now approaches. Mentally I do feel a bit ready, but physically wise, it's another matter. Let's see what I can do in this few days.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

all the best to your race 84... good luck!