Bali Maybank Half Marathon: Haziq's 1st 10km Run

The Bali Maybank Half Marathon is Haziq's 1st international run. After dabbling in some runs, mostly in Johor Bahru - joining an international run will expose to a new experience for him. 

Joining an international run isn't as easy as it seems. Logistic asides, the fee is astronomical. For the 10km events that we participated, the fee is almost double of what I have paid for a half marathon events back in Malaysia. But prestige is everything in the running circuit, and the Maybank Bali Half Marathon is already a brand by itself.

We started to feel the full reputation of the running event when we collected the running kit in Denpasar. 

The whole process should only take 20 minutes. But we've learned a great lesson about the congested traffic in Bali since we had to spent more than 2 hours just to stop by for the running kit collection.

While Denpasar is the city that usually associated with the Pulau Bali, the run actually will be held in Gianyar. The city is about 35km from Denpasar. 

The distance is approximately the same distance from my house to Johor Bahru, which will take about 30 minutes. With the traffic condition in Bali? It took us about another 2 hours to get there.

The partner-in-crime/tukang hasut that got me in this Maybank Bali Half Marathon is Iqbal. This was his 2nd time for the run and the 4th time in the island.

We had to turn up very early for the 10km - at 5am even though ours will only start at 7am. Guess what? We were just being cautious because of the traffic - again. 

Our measures does seems to be worked out fine. 

We stopped at the prayer's tent for Suboh and just in time for the starting point for the 10km. 

From what the tukang hasut whispered, the allures of this Bali Half Marathon is the participations of the natives in the event. 

At the starting line, the organizer have lined up the traditional musical players to hype up the event.

The early stage of the route was on the main road, so there was nothing much special that can be seen. 

After a while, the route took a turn to the housing alleys. This is when the run started to get interesting.

The houses were imbued with traditional Bali façade.  

The natives were all outside of their homes, cheering the runners.

There were lines of school children holding banner while cheering in front of their school.

"Adik cilik!!! Ayuh berlari!!!"

They cheered for Haziq.

Fuel station attendants went out of their way to cheer by lining up on the main road, in front of their station.

Just like what Iqbal told me. When running for the Maybank Bali Half Marathon, we will be more interested of enjoying the run instead of trying to finish it.

In fact when we completed the 10km, the event tents' maze will require us to walk another 2km. There were the mascots, ice creams and drinks.

Coincidently, while this is his 1st international run, this is also Haziq's 1st time running a 10km. 

He was seriously exhausted by the end of the whole experience. 

And again, we have to went through the traffic again. Sigh....