After last year’s inaugural run in Dataran Merdeka, I've decided to join this year’s edition in Dataran Putrajaya. TM Fan Run was my first ever public race so there’s something sentimental about it. Besides, I don’t join too many races nowadays (maybe 2–3 per year?) so one race that I wouldn’t want to miss is definitely TM Fan Run.
As always TM Fan Run was organized by the national telecommunication conglomerate TM (who else) in support of the Malaysian athletes competing in the Sea Games (this year in Singapore). I don’t recall any races for Malaysian athletes in the Olympic or Commonwealth games. Maybe it’s because we have little to no hope in those games #LOL. Anyway I didn’t care much about the purpose. What I like most is that the entry fee was only 38 ringgit which is quite cheap compared to most races these days which easily starts from 50 ringgit. Even then, some only give you one lousy low-quality singlet and some bananas apart from the medal (I’m looking at you NM Galaxy Run).
What makes this year’s run even more special was that my wife would be joining me along as well. This is our second ever run together but she was bold enough to pick the 10 kilometers category. Of course we were planning to train every week until race day together. What actually happened was, we barely had time to train even once a week especially my wife. Well, at least I ran once or twice every week around the neighborhood if not the gym for a month before the race.
I know the race is somewhere around Putrajaya but I had no idea where Dataran Putrajaya is. Thanks to the technological marvel that is Waze, we found the location without any problems on the day of the race. We woke up around 5:30 in the morning that day and arrived a few minutes before 7:00. Nothing like the morning moments before a race. The sun was just rising, the sky blueish orange and the anticipation building up before the starting line. The 15 kilometers crowd had just left then but we still had to wait 15 minutes or so before the flag off. We were flagged off by none other than the Youth and Sports minister himself, the ‘tall. dark & handsome” Khairy Jamaluddin who also joined in the 5 kilometers race. Although the girls (and boys) were literally giggling at the sight of him, I couldn’t care less really. I just wanna get on with my race.
I could have run ahead and leave my wife behind because I do have a better pace from her but we’ve decided from the start to run together. So we ran and sometimes walk for most part of the race. It was not until half way through the race that my wife could no longer bear the sight of me trotting so slowly beside her that she insisted that I ran along without her. I hesitated at first but ran ahead eventually. It was around 8:30 am when I reached the finish line. The last 2 kilometers or so was torture to say the least. My lack of (adequate) training was really showing. The sun was scorching overhead and I huffed and puffed through the final leg of the race and my timing was way off my 1:08 best. But it didn’t matter much because the important thing is I finished the route and get to run with my wife till the end.
After the race we collected our medal and snack pack which consist of bread and banana (what else). We met a few friends along the way before heading home to rest. I look forward for next year’s TM Fan Run again. Hopefully I could clock a better record that time around. My wife is so pumped after this race, she immediately sign up for the PJ Half Marathon in September. Well you better actually train this time baby cause I might not be waiting for you :-)
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