"Awesome. Great write up. Inspiring and will inspire people to love trail running. Thanks a million Maggie".
- Genki Watanabe-
"She has passion and competency in running. Thanks Maggie. Happy Running".
-Race Director-
Here are the review;
Survivor X -15.1 Km Trail Run Race:13 January 2013 by Maggie Kim Hong Yeo
Its the first time, this event is organised. I was approached by a fellow Batu Pahatian to enter this event. And since I have just returned from living overseas for about 14 years, I couldn't wait but to participate in my hometown event for the first time ever!!
On race morning, I drove to the start line at about 6.30 am. The race starts at about 7.20 am which was a good time coz it is not too early. Trail running require some sunlight in the forest so the runners can see a little better! The start was on the parking lot in an industrial area in Batu Pahat, in a manufacturing company Sharp Manufacturing (M) Sdn Bhd. And wow, what a surprise just 100 m after we start, we were already on a trail of off road route!
I would say the first 4km were mostly flats but grassy, going through some little bumps and humps with very tall "lalang" bushes.
After that, the bushes got thicker and thicker! I got cut on my shins from the wild long grass! We had to go through a few types of plantations, the palm tree plantation. This type of plantation requires the soil to be hard and mostly are red earth which has cracked, so when I ran through this part I had to be very careful, but even so, I went all out.
A bunch of the faster runners left quite instantly after the starting, leaving me almost alone until I managed to catch up with a runner. I decided to tag on to him, happily running right behind him.
The signs along the trails were so far accurate and clear. Soon I decided to overtake this runner and went on and thats when I caught up with Kluang Man(Rostam Raselip)! I left him and from here I was mostly on my own!!
Then the climb started. I had to hang on to the branches, or the smaller trees shoots in order to pull myself up. One can be very surprised how strong these young trees are. They don't break at all! So that was fantastic support for me. I think at one stage I was moving practically leaning onto the ground, so the hill was quite steep. In another instance, I go under a major log (tree) which fell!
Going through the stream was real fun too coz thats when I get wet and the water just made my feet cooled!! Although after that they were pretty heavy coz the shoes were wet!
That was when the descending started!! At a certain part of the terrain, I even had to sit on my butt and just let myself slide down!! This was great fun again. I didn't want to run down the hill which was full of shrubs n bushes coz it far too dangerous!!
Finally, I came to the flat again, here the signs were a little tricky and I got lost! I ran for about 300 m and thought where are the white pieces of papers gone to! I stopped, looked around and thought for a minute or so. I decided to turn back and ran back to the last white paper I saw and anyhow just ran to another direction.
Thank goodness, I found the route again. This part is actually the start of the flats again. And because I was the lead female runner, the escort on the bicycle followed me all the way back to the finish line!
The feeling of being the first to finish was just fabulous!! Crossing the ribbon made me feel like a Million!!
Nothing beats the feeling of being the first, being a Winner!!
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