Do visit us at our website:

http://teammiraclemile.weebly.com/

Click on the Announcements page for daily updates.

We hope you will find the website useful for you in many ways.

Run your miracle mile!

As the name says it, part of the run is ’running’ (I’d prefer to use the word ‘walking’ here) up Komtar!
Yes, you read it right, all the way from level 1 to level 60.
Not only that, we need to run for about 2km around Komtar and Prangin Mall first before doing the climb.

I’ve a few things that I’m expecting in this run. We’ll be…

1. Running in an enclosed building.

Meaning the staircase will be crowded if you are running with the pack. Being crowded in an enclosed building means…

2. A variety of smell.

Wide range of body odour is expected! Probably it would be like in the perfume department in shopping complex, just that it’s organic and natural.

3. Hot and stuffy.

Yeah, with hundreds and hundreds (probably a thousand?) of people huffing and puffing and all the body heat.

4. Dirty railing and wrestling.

Obviously, everyone would fight to grab the railing to help them climb up the steps. All the sweaty, oily and dirty hands touching the railings, goodness! What if you unknowingly grab hold of the railing, and then unknowingly wipe the sweat off your face with the same hand? >.<

***
So did my predictions come true? Let’s find out!
***

I actually had a bad start. We’re asked to register between 6am and 6:30am. So I set my alarm to wake me up at 5am and another at 5:15am just in case if the first one didn’t succeed.

Guess what? When I woke up, I look at my phone; it reads 6:11am. I stare at it for a moment before the word “I AM LATE!!!” finally register into my brain! In 5 minutes, I got ready including brushing my teeth and bathing! =D

Here’s a good tip.

***
Always and always get the things that you need prepared the day before. That includes your clothings, Powerbar/Powergel if there’s any, receipt or any proof to show that you have signed up for this run, water, isotonic drinks, Vaseline and socks.
Doing all these the day before will save you the precious time that you need such as the one I’m facing.
***

I practically raced my way to Komtar. When I reached there, it was already 6:30am and I am yet to find a parking space! Getting quite stressed and annoyed, Andrew called to tell me the good news. Registration hasn’t started yet! Thank God for our Malaysian time!

Taking our green bands...

At around 7am, we were given hand bands according to our category. They grouped the Mens Open and the Girls Junior at the first flag off and the Womens Open and Boys Junior at the second flag off. However, before starting the race, we have to go through a warming up session by Celebrity Fitness I think? Since they’ve given a voucher in the goody bags for this run.

At 7:30am, finally the race begins! All the time my mind was thinking “Get away from the crowd, get away from the crowd”. I tried pacing faster to break away from them at the side. However, after a short while, I had a little side cramps. Most probably I didn’t train much on a faster pace so I had to embrace myself for the worst when I reach the staircase.

When I reach the entrance to the staircase, it wasn’t like what I expect it to be…it was far worser! Although it fell right on my predictions, I didn’t expect it to be that bad. Adding to the fact that the oxygen level is very low.

After crawling up to about level 15 or 16, I had to stop once every 2 or 4 floors as there’s an air vent that blows in cold air at every odd numbered floors. Now I know how firemen feel like when they are running up a building that is on fire without their oxygen tank. There are a few times I thought I could almost pass out or wants to give up. During those times, I had to stop for a longer period of time and thankfully I brought a bottle of water with me as there’s no water station at all.

Aerobics Leader : "Oi! Come to the middle lah..."

When I reach level 45, it dawned upon me that there are only 15 floors left and that itself, gives me the strength and motivation to carry on! Every floor after that seems lighter, colder and easier to breathe. Upon reaching the top (took me about 30-35 minutes), I’m too tired and too busy hoping for cold air to greet me but no; a lot of (hot and stinky) people are waiting for the elevator. Suffocation doesn’t leave me alone even in the elevator until the door opens and fresh air greets us.

Now I appreciate our air more after this run. =)

I went to look for Andrew, Christopher and Deswyn who was ahead of me throughout the entire run. =P
Had a little “walk down the memory lane” while I make my way to Dewan

And so they run...

Tunku (Komtar Dome). Childhood memories flood my mind as I pass by certain shops. For your information, Komtar is very very runned down inside and most of the shops have disappeared for a long time already. The government is already making their way in reviving Komtar back to it’s former glory.

Saw Dewan Tunku up ahead, and as I walked towards the outside where we could see the second group of runners running by, cold, refreshing cups of 100 Plus caught my attention and they tasted exceptionally wonderful after all the suffocating experience! =D

Meet up with the rest of the Miracle Miler guys and cheered for Wai Wai! However I didn’t stay back there as I need to rush back to go to church.

Andrew doesn't want to inhale carbon monoxide...

Christopher focusing in his run, so is the other runners, except for one...

Deswyn racing with some veteran runners.

The only time you'll see me smiling during the race!

This is nothing compared to what's ahead of us...

This is at the 60th floor! One person is prepared in case of AH1N1 outbreak up there.

The first four who reached the top!

Wai Wai with her finishing pose!

Congrats Team Miracle Mile for conquering Komtar!

From left : Deswyn, Wai Wai, Christopher, Andrew and Justin

By the way, I did hold the railing and I did wipe the sweat off my face with my hands!!! ARGH!!! No wonder my face felt itchy!!!

4.35 am – Got up to shower and prep for the race. Counted on getting some blisters for the day so I got a good dose of vaseline and plasters on required areas.

5 am – Physically prepped for the race. Now on to fueling up the body for the race with my favourite Dorset Cereal.

5.30 am – Warm up the car’s engine and soon was heading off to the Lake Gardens

6 am – Arrived to find that the car park was already filled.

6.30 – 7.00 am – Met up with Natalie and the rest of the Miracle Milers Team. Did some warm up before the race starts at 7am.

7.00 am – Gun off! and what a load of crowd. I couldn’t even run in the first few meters. It was more like walking.

7.15 am – Finally made out of the rat pack and running towards Bank Negara. A small ascend towards the Bukit Tunku housing area and the dreaded double hill.

8 am – I was with Andrew en route to Bukit Tunku but he has since gone ahead of me. The double hill took a toll on my calf muscles and I couldn’t pace anymore. If I push it any harder, the lactic acid will kick in and I would have been out of the race for good.

8.30 am – I was running and walking intermittently, more walking though but thoroughly exhausted.

8.35 am – Have gone into the Lake Garden entrance but the race was far from over as we have to go one round around the park.

8.45 am – Almost towards the finishing line and I saw photographer, Tey and Chan at the entrance. After passing the finishing line my left calf starts to cramp and I was limping while on the way to meet the others. Finally, the race was over.

Ever since I started running and training, I have always gone out without any form of identification and sometimes even without my phone but lately I’ve been thinking about running with some form of identification. I’ve noticed ads for ‘Road ID’ (www.roadid.com) and ‘ID Band’ (www.idband.net) in magazines and on the web. During a short trip across the causeway I decided to check out ‘ID Band’ and ordered one for myself. My ID Band arrived today (it would have arrived earlier but being the cheapskate that I am I took the more economical road of which I will not divulge any further ).

Now that I have my ‘ID Band’ around my wrist, I had another thought. That is if something did happen to me while running and …

if you see my lifeless body sprawled on the road, would you know what to do?

Would you bother to look at that black rubber band on my wrist? Probably not… Which is why I hope that by writing about this ‘fat black rubber band’ of mine, more people would be aware of such things. If more people are aware of it then they would know what to do.

Saturday pre-race prep…
25.04.2009 5pm:
After a heavy pasta meal for carbo-loading I thought I could sleep. Nope, nada, rolling around in bed and couldn’t catch a wink. I guess this a problem most people face when preparing for the Sundown Marathon or any night running event.

Race day.
26.04.2009 12am:
Beep! Beep! Beep! Alarm rings and time to get up, I must’ve fallen asleep at about 8pm or 9pm. Shower and got ready to leave the house.

1am:
Leave the house for Taman Midah. Met up with fellow TMM mate Natalie, my contact person with the Bandar Permaisuri gang, at Old Town Coffee. Natalie runs with the Bandar Permaisur Pacesetters regularly and knows most of them.

3.30am: Our chartered coach arrives. Seeing a few husband and wife teams boarding the bus makes me wonder when I will meet my ‘ultimate’ running partner (a position I’ve been trying to fill for quite a while now ;P). All in 38 crazy people boarded the bus and we’re off to Bidor! Time to catch up on as much ZZZ’s as possible.

5am:
Bus arrives at Bidor with enough time for a milo and ‘char siew pau’.

6.30am:
Looking around after reporting in, I spot 3 people wearing the Garmin Forerunner 405.  I’ve definitely caught Garmin fever and can’t wait to get my hands on one!

7am:
Race begins and we’re off. While I’ve ran with music before, this time I made a special effort to set a proper playlist. I wanted to start easy the 1st half so I listen to Jason Mraz. I think it worked very well as I cross the 10KM mark running a comfortable pace at exactly 60mins. Unlike other races I’ve been to, this race actually had markers at every KM except the last 5KM. If only all races were marked like that.

During the 2nd half I picked up the pace listening to Moby. I manage to keep a pretty good pace even when going up hill and needless to say I went full speed downhill. When I saw the sign ‘5KM to go’ I put on my ‘power song’ ‘Push the Tempo’ by Fatboy Slim, it must’ve have worked cause I was literally pushing the tempo and feeding my dust to a lot of people. The moment I saw the finish line it was 5th gear, turbo boost, nitro, everything, for a full on sprint finish! I finished #109 in Men’s Open category at 2hours and 1minute, just 2minutes shy of going under 2hours but it’s a personal best nonetheless. At the finish line, there were a bunch of cameras; I just hope there was at least one pointed at me.

Natalie finished #38 in Women’s Open category at 2hours 22minutes.

Post race activities included seafood lunch at Tg. Tualang, tea time and dinner at Sabak Bernam, plus plenty of sightseeing. I finally got back to bed at 12am Monday morning, that’s exactly 24hours since I got out of bed!

While it was a whole lot of fun running, travelling and meeting such a great bunch of people I’ll probably opt to stay over night the next time I join a race outside of the Klang Valley.

While having dinner in Sabak Bernam taken with my K530i.

1st lap, warm up jog. We ran the biggest perimeter, clockwise. Time clocked: 25:03.

2nd lap, we did a tempo run. The real run begins.

Danny was hot on my heels! I could hear him right behind me, stride for stride.

We hit the first killer hill at around the halfway mark. I couldn’t hear Danny’s footsteps at that point. But I still continued to press on. I thought he entered stealth mode for a while, so later he can ambush. Better continue to tekan.

Tekan, tekan, tekan… Then I saw Natalie, just arriving.

Finished with a new 1-lap personal best of 17:45.

Then only I found out that Danny took it easy after the first killer hill. I got conned! Hahaha…

Anyway, that’s the magic of group training. You’ll get pushed to do better, either physically or psychologically. Inevitably, that will translate to getting more out of a workout, and clocking better times. So, come and join us for our training sessions! Team power…

Next is breakfast time!

She's doing the full 42k for the Standard Chartered KL Marathon.

He is also doing the full marathon!

Both of them will be running a half marathon route for training tomorrow morning. Madness… They are more  hard core than me!

Wait, one day I will join them in the full marathon. The day will come. Must graduate from the half marathon first. The hunt for 1:30 continues…

-By Joshua Hooi-

By Natalie Ng

Pre race – the day before…

Team Miracle Mile (Danny, Sadat, Sze Hwei, Eric, Eric’s gf, Joshua and me) gathered at VIVO restaurant at the Curve to have lunch as Danny needs to pass the race numbers to us. Except Andrew whom we thought under detention as we tried contacted him but to no avail. Finally he called Danny to say he’s fine, will be coming for the race and he lost his HP. Phew… what a relief.

5.30 am. Alarm rang. As usual, the night before, I could not sleep well. I woke up a few times just to check the clock. Probably worried I might overslept and missed the race. 

6.30 am. Reached the Curve. The weather was perfect. Participants started to flock the starting point. Saw many familiar faces. Saw a few men wearing the T-shirt that read “If you can read this, means I am not the last”. 

Unfortunately for Sadat, he could not make it last minute. He received a message about 3 am from his boss recall him back to office for urgent matter. Of course his significance other is not coming then. Only left three of us – Danny, Andrew and me. Our new member, Eric came all the way from Klang to be the photographer. Thanks Eric!   

I was with Danny and Andrew in the sea of participants when a man with hailer shouting “men in front, ladies behind”. So off I went to the back of the pack.

7.30 am. The men category flagged off.

7.35 am. Women category gunned off. Few yards from the starting point, some man left one piece of right shoe sole on the road. Wonder how he continue with one good shoe? I think I started well. No panting and puffing. Just enjoying overtaking other runners including men who started earlier. Caught up with the Permaisuri gang. Ran together for about 4km before losing them. They were too fast for me.

About 5km into the race, stopped at water station to quench thirst. Off I ran again. Suddenly a male runner, offered a quarter filled bottle of Isotonic drink to me. I declined politely as I just don’t share drink with stranger. Then I saw he passed the bottle to a traffic policewoman who was marshalling the race. She also declined. Maybe a bit gross?!   

I was pacing with this female runner in sexy attire overtaking each other whenever possible and at the last kilometre, she dashed off leaving me in disbelief. Darn…why can’t I have the energy like her? Maybe because she was wearing less, more aerodynamic, less air friction?   

Few more meters to go… smile for the camera and there… I finished with an improved timing. Thanks to the shoe I bought from Brooks. Lighter compared to my previous shoe.

Here’s the result…

Danny as usual leading the way..

Danny Chan – 59.42 min 

“I ate Yuan Yufang’s dust 20mins into the race!” commented Danny.

Xcuz me... overtake! Overtake!

Andrew Ng – 1h 16min

almost there.. almost..

Natalie Ng – 1h 11min.

We sure know which one is Eric.

While settling down after the race, I got “scolded” for complaining too much.

Me: Eh…so lousy wan.. why no finisher medal? 

Andrew: Aiyo…free registration ma…why expect so much?

Me: I was told last year the goodies bag were very good. Maybe economy bad, that’s why.

Andrew: At least they gave free and discount coupons when you fill RM30 gas with BHP.

  *insert photo later*

Post race – brunch at Restaurant Gembira eating the infamous Sarawak kolo mee. Ahh… terubat rasa rindu of my hometown, miaw…

Note: Yuan Yu Fang (national walker) joined this race too. Not sure of her timing.

She said, “If you win the RM2k, I get half. Cos if I don’t bring you here, then you cannot go.” Logic hor… logic… Hehe!

Arrived at Kuala Terengganu…

Straightaway, pre-race party!

No lah. This is McDonald’s, beside the bus terminal. Arrived at an unearthly hour at 5:30am. People congregate here by default to wait for dawn.

But I lagi hard core. I terus walk to the run venue to look for a budget hotel along the way. None. Too dark to see one, even if there were any.

Finally found a budget hotel, 25 minutes away from the race venue. Hotel Teratai Tenang at Jalan Sultan Sulaiman. Check out the single room…

Got tv, Astro, air-cond, fan, fridge, wardrobe, coffee table, chairs... Hebat, hor?

There is no attached bathroom. They have a shared bathroom on the same floor…

Did you think it will be dirty and smelly? Not at all!

For RM45 a night, it’s super worth it. The double room, lagi gila. RM55 only! (If I’m not mistaken)

Walked to the race venue again to register. On the way there, a historical flashback…

Di manakah terletaknya suatu sumber utama yang penting, yang dipanggil Batu Bersurat?

Yes, it's in Terengganu!

Continue journey to the race venue. Then, another historical flashback…

I was here before, 14 years  ago. National Junior Age-Group Swimming Championships. All I needed was a top 2 finish to qualify for the ASEAN Schools Championship.

I finished 2nd! The coach saw it. The team manager saw it. My teammates saw it. Everyone saw it.

But the time keeper didn’t. He forgot to press the stop watch.

Despite the protests, all they could do was have re-swim. In the re-swim, I finished 4th. That was an early lesson on predestination. Sigh…

Reached the race venue!

It's just by the beach

Aren’t the beaches clean?

Wonder why?

Scary or not?

Haha! Even if you wanna throw a sweet wrapper on the beach, you’ll be so paranoid. Somebody will come and tap on your shoulder and ask for money. It could be anyone! It could be you… it could be me!

Walked back to the hotel and took a nap. Tired.

Woke up at lunch time. Went out and walked towards the bus terminal. Wanted to buy a return ticket to KL. Went inside the first chinese restaurant that I saw.

Vietnam style fish with rice, and asparagus with venison.

Carbo loading is not fun, when you’re doing it alone.

After buying a return bus ticket, it’s gallivanting time around Kuala Terengganu!

Well, well, well… What do we have here…

A well! Captain Lim’s well…

Oh well…

I was getting a little lost at Chinatown. Then I came across this signpost…

All I wanted to know was, which way to Jalan Sultan Sulaiman…

So very useful indeed.

Anyway, I stumbled upon Pasar Besar Kedai Payang. While I was browsing through the keropok shops, I heard incessant mewing nearby…

Kitties don’t live on lekor alone lah…

Or on oranges either…

Dinner time!

Dinner with a view, man…

Kung pou kai fan, with mixed vegetables. Carbo loading alone is no fun. Even if there’s a view.

Back to the hotel. Time to lay out my equipment…

From left to right: Specs strap, fuelbelt, cashews, coffee, PowerBar, PowerGel concoction loaded into fuelbelt bottles, and Gatorade.

It’s very important to get all your gear sorted out the night before the race. So you’ll be in a proper state of mind to race when you wake up the next morning.

A few other things you must do on pre-race night: Check out the race route again on a map. Visualize the race. Set a targeted finishing time. Finalize your strategy. Set alarm clock. Go to sleep.

* * * * * * * * * *

Race day! 7:30am sharp…

Spot the Miracle Miler.

Post race lunch…

The closest I could get to Ganu food

Reached back to KL at 9:30pm. There’s that girl again…

That girl: Did you win the RM2k?

Me: No.

That girl: Did you get souvenirs?

Me: No.

That girl: Why?

Me, explaining on the map how far I had to walk around Kuala Terengganu, but to no avail

Ok lah, nevermind. I belanja Secret Recipe.

The end.

For more about how the race went, go to: http://hastenministries.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/larian-jambatan-bandaraya-kuala-terengganu/

I always heard that Joshua was into running. I was curious and one day I wanted to ask him about it. So, I asked him and he told me about running stuff and blah blah blah. I was thinking “Wow, running doesn’t look easy and needs lots of discipline.”

So one day, he brought me to go running with Li Ean. Phew! I was tired after running the first time. My leg muscles almost mati. So he really got me excited about running because he told me of his fun experiences in 10k runs. He kinda inspired me when he told me he won those medals… lol… So I decided to go running.

Then Joshua brought me to Brooks. He gave me free ‘consultation service’ on shoes… lol.. He told me about the pronation stuff and arch types. After trying a few shoes, I got my suitable one. I got Radius 7. It’s great and is helping me to improve my run now.. So I do hope to run my first 10k by this year or next year..

(Kenneth Wong is a happy client who has benefitted from Team Miracle Mile’s shoe consultation service. Find out how you can get a consult too!)

But where exactly is the core muslce? Just those six packs below your chest? The core muscle includes the abdominals, lower back and glutes. What does the core do precisely?

“They provide the stability, power, and endurance that runners need for powering up hills, sprinting to the finish, and maintaining efficient form mile after mile. “When your core is strong, everything else will follow,” says Greg McMillan, a running coach in Flagstaff, Arizona, who has worked with scores of elite and recreational runners. “It’s the foundation for all of your movement, no matter what level of running you’re doing.” (Runner’s World)

So, don’t just work those crunches to get the packs visible. Work the lower back and your glutes as well. Once the core is strong and stable, it will be able to support your lower body muscle group and can help prevent injury a whole lot more. Spend about 15 minutes a day doing crunches, bridge, squats, etc. Squeezing and tightening your abs while doing so will help too.