This was my second race in two weeks, and I must say, the Nike City 10K Kuala Lumpur 2010 run was a bit of a disappointment. The route was beginner friendly, but since the race tagline was “We Run KL”, it could have been better. The organisers should have taken a page out of the KL Marathon (2008) organiser’s book but instead running on the highway and on Jalan Tun Razak seems to be the order of the day.

Starting at the KLCC outdoor carpark at Jalan Binjai at 7.15 a.m., the race was divided into two distance categories, 5 KM and 10 KM. I’m not sure why, maybe due to cost, but both started at the same time. The start was really congested as since this event was widely advertised, it attracted a lot of new runners.

Some of these participants, decided to slow down and start walking after a kilometre or two, hindering those who are running. I saw people getting shoulder-barged and shouted at (I did say “excuse me” several times), and if you are one of those “victims”…ouch..too bad..but it’s better to just get out of the way.

Anyways, by the third kilometre, the 10 KM runners had the route to themselves and soon enough we were on the AKLEH (Ampang KL Elevated Highway). Similar to the NPE, it was equally as boring and the only saving grace for this portion of the race was the live band at the u-turn near the toll plaza. I had a minor problem with the slope due to the blister I obtained during the race, funny, it was the exact same spot as the previous blister from the other race 2 weeks ago.

The last couple of kilometers took place on Jalan Tun Razak. The barriers put up for the race, blocking off one lane for the runners created a traffic jam, which was not good since we had to run along the road into the Tun Razak tunnel. There were several buses inside, and the exhaust smoke was pretty killer, comparable with Jakarta of all places.

Exiting the tunnel, runners did a u-turn towards the final stretch to the finish line at the Jalan Binjai car park. I finish the race with an unofficial time of 1 hour 7 minutes. Results are available at https://www.nikecity10kmalaysia.com/tools/results/results. You’ll need to get the bib number that’s printed on your shirt though, I’ve to go look for it later tonight.

On another note, I noticed that the Adidas miCoach app has a hard time getting a GPS lock at the start of two consecutive races. Maybe it’s because it’s strapped to my shoulder? Or maybe is it due to signal interference? I’m not sure but it doesn’t screw up during training. Anyways, I managed to get a signal lock when I started running, but there were some blind spots along the way. Strange.