This is certainly not my first race, instead, this is my first race for others. A friend of mine was not able to participate in this Rock to Rock Run that he signed up awhile ago. However, he really likes the finishing medal. Thus, I was asked to run for the medal for him!
After reviewing my training plan, I changed my weekend long run of 18km to one easy run on Saturday and then the 10km race on Sunday. This could make up to the total weekly mileage that I planned for. So, I agreed to do that for him.
The arrangement was to have another friend to pass me the BIB on the race day. As usual, I reached the race venue around 1 hour before the race started. After warm up and a few rounds of slow run, the friend had not shown up.
It was 6:52am (race start at 7am) and I still didn't had my BIB yet. I was struggling to myself if I should run without BIB or go home. I was biased towards the 2nd options. After walking the last round at hotel lobby (where I planned to meet up with my friend for the BIB), I decided to go home. As I walked outside the lobby, I met a few other friends. So, we just talked had a quick talk. Just after a few sentences, the friend just brought the BIB in.
We quickly registered ourselves (to get the coloured rubber band) and went to the starting line. I stopped beside the road to pin my BIB on. Since the race had not started and I didn't want to run with my handphone on my hand, I decided to jog to my car around 500m away to put my handphone in my car.
While half way jogging back to the starting line, I heard the starting whistle. Trying to control my pace, I just kept to jog at slower pace until I reach the starting line. Before reaching the starting line, I had to make my way through the fun run crowd in which their run was to start at 7:15am.
Finally, I reached the starting line and started my Garmin watch for the run. I could be the last runner to cross the starting line. It took me some efforts to run pass slower runner at the start. This disturb my tempo and breathing a bit. However, I managed to keep my breathing back in a short while.
For last year, I participated in this run a few days after I recovered from my back pain. So, I was running very slow and careful last year. This time though, I was able to run at my regular pace on this route.
As what I intended before the run, I finished the race with slightly less than 1 hour time. I was then waited for the friend to pass the medal and just leave for subsequent event.
This is my first time running for others. With this experience, I will not allow myself to collect my race BIB on the race day!
