Iskandar Puteri Night Marathon 2018: Hottest Run Ever

I’m consider myself a noob with half marathon circuit. Even though the running events in Johor Bahru have been blooming throughout the years, getting a decent experience for half marathon is still difficult for me.

Because even though I run, I’m not a great half marathoner. In the 4 hour time limit, I’m always in the dead last group of runners that touched the finish line. One time, I even had to be transferred to the finish line with the bus.

Another reason is because the organizer in Johor Bahru still delivered mixed result for the running events.

I didn’t get the best experience with the Iskandar Puteri Night Run’s organizer in 2017. From all the running events that I had joined, that was the first time ever that I can’t get my hand on the running tee. I had paid the full running fee and yet didn’t get the running tee due to the stock have depleted.

Ridiculous…

This year I'm early at the running site. I'm also early in getting the running tee, to prevent last year's disappointment.

The half marathon starts with a bang. Several fireworks lights up the sky while the runners punched their music and GPS along the starting line.

Immediately, I found that my carbo loading that evening wasn’t working out as I intended it to be. As the run will drag out late into the midnight, eating at the evening is a must.

After several night runs, I found that my preferred meal is pizza. Maybe it was because of my interrupted sleeps, I found that this time eating the pizza backfired. I found myself to be bloated throughout the first 5km.  

Fortunately the run was still early, and that doesn’t detract me from the run.

What I found that managed to put a huge dent into this run was the heat. It was a hot season in Johor Bahru. While I thought the heavy rain in the evening will make the run easier, it had done the opposite. The humidity level had raised. It was sauna throughout the route.

When you ran for more than 5 years, you’ll get some of the gist the event will fold. While some of them leave great impression to me, most of the things that I remembered were the ones that drew flak from the runners.

That had raised my guard throughout the years every time I join any running event.

Getting a hydration running belt is something that I have to do after being disappointed with the drink stops at running events. Once, I was left parched for more than 7km in a 10km run.

Having the hydration running belt strapped around my belt while running isn’t something that I consider ideal.  Less is better during running. The extra weight will not help at the last miles in the run.

I wear it of out of necessity. Instead of depending on the drink stops, I could just gulp the drink whenever I want.  In this particular run though, all that hydration prep had been thrown out of the window

It was not even half the distance, but I had depleted all of my supply.

It affected all the runners as well. While running the half marathon was difficult, it must be hell for the full marathoners. The organizer opted to distribute mineral waters throughout the route. Along the road, there were water bottles everywhere.

It doesn’t help that the water stations were not adequately prepared. There were stations that have completely depleted their drink supply. From the looks of it, the distance between one water station and another was also not according the original location.

That really killed this whole event.

Other than that, this half marathon that I have is a mechanical one. I managed to run (and walk) nonstop until the finish line, without any muscle cramp. While there was 3 U-turns along the route, since I did look into the map beforehand – there were no surprises.

Touching the finishing line in the end does bring some redemption. While I had a lot of difficulties with my previous half marathon, this is the 1^st time that I have a half marathon without any drama.

I’ve got my running tee.

I arrived early at the running site.

There wasn’t any injury or cramps.

I managed to be hydrated even with the whole hydration fiasco.

All the while managed to run throughout  the whole route.

Nice!