Keep on running...

Hey, who is that in centre with yellow vest?

Forget all the forced national integration attempts (gimmicks) by the government agencies to foster (force) national integration. The way to national unity is via sports! This revelation, I discovered  during the last run in Putrajaya Twilight Challenge on 29th January 2011, which Suresh and I partook. It was actually a LSD - a runners' lingo for 'long slow distance' where runners take slow runs to cover the distance they wish to cover, mostly as preparation for imminent races. No, it is nothing to do with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, LSD, the 1960s illicit party drug and nothing to do with Lucy in the Sky of Diamonds. Of course, the post-run endorphine surge that gives an euphoric high feeling does not count, but this is of course legal!
The Challenge was organised on a small scale amidst the time when the whole nation was in the CNY celebratory mood to cater for those die-hard runners who had nothing else better to do. It attracted many categories of participants - novice, hard core and lunatics. Lunatics?
The track for the run was a 11.3km road track starting in front of the Palace of Justice all the way to the Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC), back, to the Putra Mosque and back. The novice mostly did 11km while the lunatics registered for the gruelling Ultra-Marathon of 88km run. They started at 7pm and had until 6am to finish it!
The low-key run (technically it was not a race) was organised predominantly via cyber-technology. The list of participants and the distance they registered to run were sent by e-mail. The bib was written by hand on site. Runners were told that the certificates of participation would be sent by PDF files for them to record their own times which they could determine from the giant digital clock exhibited at the finishing line!
Proceeds from the run went to aid orang asli children with their education.
Coming back to national integration and muhibbah.... The atmosphere was a happy and cordial one. Before and after the run, everyone was in high spirits and picking up a conversation amongst each other. As the event progressed, everyone was looking out for each other, giving friendly reminders (watch out for that car!), giving words of encouragement (going good brader!), thumbs up and others.
As the enrolment was small, it became lonely sometimes. Under the blanket of the night, at one point, I almost lost my way! Anyway, Suresh (my partner in crime) and yours truly completed it in one piece. Suresh completed his maiden 22km race in 2h15m (I think) but not without blisters on his feet and bleeding under his toe nail! My timing was 2h25m. We went home happy gleaming with our finisher's medal.
A long evening but still managed to attend a birthday party later that evening!