This is my first time participate in a rack walking event. I was not sure whether I should participate even just a week before. The trailwalker in Hong Kong takes a long time to recover. And my right leg is still not 100% normal before I book my bus ticket to KL. The 12 walk is from 8pm to 8am and count by how many laps that you can finish in a 1km loop. I was hoping to finish 72 laps (averaged 6km/h) judging from the timing in Sundown.
The journey to Putrajaya is LOOOONG. I woke up 6:30am in the morning. I got out of the door at around 7:15am. First, I took MRT to Lavendar. Then, took a bus to KL at 8:45am. There is some jam at both Singapore and Malaysia custom. At the end I only arrive at KL at 4:30pm. Then, I took the Rapid KL train to KL Sentral. From KL Sentral, I took the KLIA transit to Putrajaya. At Putrajaya Sentral, I walk about 3km to the venue - the stretch in front of Palace of Justice. I arrived there at around 6pm+. Took me around 11 hours from my home to the venue.
I register, pay the fee and get my bib and champion chip. The goody bag included a t-shirt, mouthwash, some nutrition pill, heat rub etc.
I found the Hong Kong team and introduce myself to them. I prepared myself for the race. But I found that I run out of tape to tape my foot. Didn't check that properly.
At the start, the pace of front walkers are really fast. My original plan is to keep a 9 min pace. But was driven by the atmosphere and walking at 8:15 to 8:30 pace for the first hour. That sow the seed for failure. After 3 hours, I finished 21km. I started to slow down to 9min+ pace. By 4.5 hours, I started to feel tire. That is possibly caused by the combination of long travelling to Putrajaya and the fast pace in the first 3 hours.
The food supplied almost always has a long queue. I was just using my own energy bars and no issue on food.
I finish the first 42km in 6 hr 48 minutes, slower than what I did in Sundown. I was so tire at one stage that I can only do 4km/h. I was very very sleepy around 3am time as well. My right leg ITB started to act on me. Everything turned bad. When I almost want to call it a day, I took a last effort to put on a pattstrap on my right leg to control the ITB and started another lap of slow walk. The pattstrap helps but I was still at about 10 mins pace.
It just happened that the fast Malaysia guy (the ultimate winner at the end) passed me. Driven by ego, I try to follow him. I actively swing my arms to pick up speed. His pace is around 7:30, amazingly, I was able to follow him a full lap at 7:30 pace and even have strength to pass him. It is my 2nd win. After that, I was on and off, I was able to do quick laps between rest. I followed the French lady (the ultimate winner in female category) for a lap as well at sub 7:30 pace. It was fun.
At the end, I called it a day after finishing 60 laps with 48 minutes left on the clock. It is a fun event and I will definitely join the event next year. The walking on a uniform loop is actually tougher than Sundown since you repeatly using the same muscle group vs in Sundown, the up and down allows recovery.
In the final result, I believe I was ranked 50 among the male walkers and got a prize of a Genting Holiday card worth RM50. This is the first time I got a prize in a competitive sport event!
The Hong Kong team got good results as well - Billie, Issac and Cheung Wai Tak all got into the top3 in the 50km race, Issac got silver in 70km race and bronze in overall female category.
A few reflection on improvement:
- need to make better preparation next time (e.g. the tape)
- need better training (I haven't train for race walking for a few months)
- need a better plan on support
- need to learn more skill about racewalking. My brisk walk is too slow and not efficient.
A page of the GPS log can be found below:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/20471574
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