Woke up at 5am on Sat and caught the 5.30am train to Lavender MRT and took a short walk to Golden Mile for the coach Grass Land's coach. There were 15 of us on this trip. We left exactly 7am and arrived KL Swiss Garden Hotel approx 12.30pm. As the afternoon was free and easy, went window shopping with Melvin Snr and Jr, Kumaran at Time Square. We went back Hotel approx 6.30pm to collect out race pack from Alan and all of us went to the same restaurant as last year to meet up with the rest of the runner who drove up, for carbo loading. Judy has the honour to order the food and she ordered 8 to 9 large-sized- dishes for a table of 10 but ended up costing each of only RM 24/- (Sing $1). Cheap cheap cheap... we even struggled to finished the food!! 
PS and Alber bought a cake and we celebrated Sumiko Birthday. Went back to Hotel approx 9.30pm to get ready for the race whereby we have to be in the lobby by 5am to catch the complimentary charted mini bus from Hotel. We arrived at the starting point at 5.10am and met with the rest of the runners.
The supposed-to-be-6am-30km race started at 6.15am. I started the race with Eddy who was a first timer. Remembering my last yr timing of 3hr -43min and how I got injured in this course, I reminded myself of my conservative target of 3hr 15min. Yes, conservative, as this was not an easy course with approx 80% hilly run. The plan was to keep 6min/km pace as much as I could, and while ascending hill would be slow, try to win back timing through descending down hill. Running uphill with very small cadence, as relaxed as I possibly could to conserve energy.
As soon as we started, we approached a winding up hill. I was lagged behind by Eddie as I need to eased myself. I treated my first 10km as my warm up run, but quite surprisingly at 10km mark after the garden into the high way, my timing was only 57 min. I must have gained back some time when descending down hill and I was feeling strong, very comfortable and not tired. Alber caught up with me at approx 6 km, and I was doing cat and mouse chase with him for a few km. He would run ahead of me in uphill and I would catch up with him in the downhill. But gradually he went ahead of me but still within my sight for the next 5 to 6 km. At approx. 12km I overtook Eddy as we were heading into the residential estate whereby slope was long and gradual. We did a u turn at 15km at the hilly estate and it was home run; running back the return route. By then I have taken 2 gel, as usual 1 at 5km and after which would take 1 each at every 10km.
At 20km, my timing was only 1hr 57 min, and still feeling strong on my leg with no sign of muscle cramp. I knew that if I were to maintain at ave 6 min/km pace for the next 10km, I would finish the race sub 3. Nice, I thought. By then the sun was out but over cast. I topped up my bottle at the 20km mark's water point and continued my race consistently monitored my timing. At 25km, it was 2hr 28min and I knew I would achieve my new sub 3 target. However at this stage I could feel small tweaking of the hamstring muscles but manageable.
After 26 km, the worst came, my left hamstring without warning, suddenly pulled and I was totally stance without any ability to move my left leg. I quickly massaging the hamstring, determined to overcome this cramp and move on. I lost approx. 2 min and slowed down to about 9 km/hr. Eddy caught up with me and told me his ITB was hurting him. We paced slowly for about 1 km, encouraging each other to "cushing" our leg, and then he slowed down, and I went ahead constantly massaging the tweaking of the left hamstring muscle. Toward the last 1-1/2 km which was up hill run, suddenly my right hamstring pulled and I was totally stance. Again I massaged as hard as I could, wasted another 2 min and then pressed on. Eddy over took me again. Finally I arrived the finishing point with the timing on my watch 3hr 8min. A very respectable timing on such a challenging and difficult course; much better than my set target of 3 hr 15min, shaved off 35min from last year 3hr 43 min. Very satisfying timing and "Will I come back next year, a resounding YES, definitely I will come with a more challenging target of sub 3".
Our girls did very well. Judy and Colleen were 2nd (2 hr 41min) and 5th (2 hr 45min) respectively in the 30km ladies Open, and Sumiko was 3rd (1 hr 31min) in the 20km Ladies Open. They all got NB sport voucher and a trophy. I was very proud of them. As for the 30 km Men Open, all our guys did very well especially for first timer like Melvin Snr and Jr who did 2 hr 20min and 2hr 22min respectively, and TH was the fastest 2 hr 15min. However their timing could not match with the champion from Kenya who did below slightly 2 hr in 30 km.
Some of us left for home on the same day by 3pm-coach.
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