Run A Way Because The Green Warriors Are Here

Saturday

I woke up at 5am (5:15 after hitting snooze) and groggily made my way to the toilet to brush my teeth and wash my face, I then put on my clothes and headed out to the Shah Alam Botanical gardens. Together with Lydia, Kayla, Nommass and Jimmy, the five of us participated in Run A Way, an obstacle run organised by students from Sunway University. It was a 7km run with five stations with challenges to complete and get a sticker to ultimately complete the run and it requires all five members of a team to finish together. This run wasn't so bad, it was a piece of cake instead however, I'm bad at jogging so my legs were pretty worn out. In our group, the faster runners are Jimmy, Nommass and I. Lydia is a decent runner but Kayla isn't good at running, that doesn't stop her from participating in running events however so during this run, we had to keep at Kayla's pace. Jimmy and I however kept encouraging and pushing her to break her limit during the run. The "obstacles" in this run to me, felt like a blown up high school treasure hunt. It wasn't that much of an obstacle course and there was even an IQ quiz as the last obstacle. It's so mildly humorous I could only let out a small chuckle. At the end of the run we got a plastic medal and a nice bag. It was an okay run but it won't be so memorable to me at least.

Sunday

I woke up at 5am and groggily made my way to the toilet to brush my teeth and wash my face, I then put on my clothes and to my horror, it was raining heavily. I quickly packed a few extra stuff for the rain and headed out to the Shah Alam Botanical gardens. This time together with Lydia, Kayla, Oscar, Ryan, Nommass and Ryan's cousin Hong Ming, it's an intense 10km run called Green Warrior Run (previously named Green Army Run). Here's the story, few months back, Lydia spotted the Green Army Run (now named Green Warrior Run) and we all agreed to join the run because of the runners shirt they were giving out, it was camouflage themed and it looked damn cool. A few weeks after that, Lydia also spotted Run A Way, she asked Kayla, Jimmy, Nommass and I if we want to form a team together for it, and I wholeheartedly gave my support which lead to everyone's agreement. So on this rainy morning I drove my way to the botanical gardens and instead of parking in the normal parking area, I got redirected to park my car far away, into some empty field which proved to be muddy and flooded with rain water. It was heavily raining when I called Kayla and then Ryan to check if they were already on location. I was the first to arrive and I was clueless as to how I was going to get to the canopy area where the run will start. I thought I'd wait for the rain to subside but after half an hour, it didn't look like the rain was going to let up. So I ran out into the rain getting soaked and very cold. I manage to make it to the canopy where the reporting counter was. The organisers announced that if the run will be delayed and that if the rain doesn't let up by 8am, the run will be canceled.

After the whole group got together, the rain started to let up and the organisers decided to proceed with the run while it was still raining. After a wet warm up, we headed to the starting line and the run started. While Lydia, Kayla, Ryan and Oscar ran together, Nommass and I ran ahead of the group together. Hong Ming disappeared long before the run started. Around 4km into the run, I fell behind Nommass, victim to my poor stamina and the cruel slopes of the botanical gardens. This run is definitely the most intense run ever, it's also my first run to run in the rain and also the first run for me to need to get to the toilet halfway. After 5km, and up an insanely steep slope of almost 500m, I had the urge to take a dump but there were no toilets around at all. I had to make the rest of the run screaming in my head to make it to the finishing line so I can go poop. I finished the run in 1 hour and 17 minutes, while Nommass finished it 8 minutes faster than me. I later learned that Hong Ming finished in 57 minutes while Oscar finished in 1 hour 20 something minutes, Lydia finished in 1 hour 43 minutes, and Kayla and Ryan finished later. This run will definitely stay in my memory for a long time because of the series of events that took place in this run.