Yesterday morning, more than 38,000 runners descended on Dataran Merdeka to take part in and celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Standard Chartered KL Marathon (SCKLM). These had included more than 1,800 running tourists from 70 countries, with 79 nationalities involved.
Click here to view the Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2018 photos.
Click here to view the StanChart KL Marathon 2018 Friendship Run photos.
Through the years, SCKLM has firmly cemented its position as a truly international event as well as the premiere running event in Malaysia and its popularity continues to grow, as evidenced by all its race slots selling out in a day when the public registrations had opened.
The 2018 edition of the SCKLM had consisted of the Full Marathon, Half Marathon, 10km Run and the 5km Fun Run, to cater to runners of different preferences and abilities.
I took part in the Full Marathon (42.195km), joining more than 10,000 runners in this event category.
As a participant in SCKLM’s Media Challenge, I had been invited to be a part of SCKLM’s charity programme, Run For A Reason (RFAR) which aims to raise funds for deserving charities that assist underprivileged communities and those in dire need. Besides media participants, participation in RFAR was also extended to all SCKLM pacers too.
Said Rainer Biemans, Project Director of SCKLM and Director of Dirigo events, the organisers of the race, “With our initiatives, the total number of RFAR runners have increased and we hope to make this tenth anniversary even more memorable by raising more money than we ever have before.”
For the charity that I had chosen to raise funds for, was the National Cancer Society of Malaysia because of personal experiences with cancer in my family. The other charities that were part of the programme also included the Dignity for Children Foundation and Hospis Malaysia.
My Full Marathon was scheduled to flag off at the early hour of 4am in the morning, so I woke up at 2.50am to get changed and ready for the race.
I reached Dataran Merdeka at about 3.30am in the morning – just in time to make my way into my start pen.
There were clear signages around Dataran Meredeka to indicate to runners where to go. This was helpful. Volunteers were also holding up large cards to indicate to runners where the entrance to the various pens were.
Agreed Eldon Chuo King Juin, 31, a cardiovascular technician, “The organisation of the race was fantastic and the signages have improved a lot compared to when I ran SCKLM three years ago. Then, I could not find some places I wanted to go, such as the baggage deposit and the toilets. But this year I had no such problems at all. The communication via email to runners was also fantastic.”
After an official warm up session and some hype created by the emcee about the race being the biggest edition of SCKLM yet, the race began sharply at 4am.
The Full Marathon was flagged off by Khairul Anuar Bin Mhd Jun, Director of Culture, Tourism, Arts and Sports, along with senior executives from title sponsor Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia, led by their managing director and Chief Executive Officer, Abrar A. Anwar, amidst showers of confetti and pumping music to celebrate the event’s tenth anniversary.
Said Abrar, “As title sponsor for the past ten years, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia is proud to be celebrating the tenth anniversary of SCKLM with its biggest event yet. It is heartwarming to see so many running enthusiasts from all over Malaysia and the world, come together.”
The race route had brought runners through KL, passing through many of the city’s iconic landmarks along the way too. So it was a nice, scenic tour of KL on foot.
Said Lee Learn Syan, 32, a Process Engineer for the Oil & Gas industry, “The route and scenery was good. We got to see the night scenery of KL and some of the traffic as well.”
But when I began running, I immediately realized that I was in for a tough time. I had heard from runners who had taken part in past years that SCKLM was pretty hilly, but I admit that I was not expecting the hills to come right from the very beginning of the run.
The hills had continued throughout the run, too, with the worst of them being around the 33km mark.
So as such, I ran at an easy pace throughout, trying to conserve my energy for the long journey ahead.
Even though I tried to train on hills for this race, Singapore, where I am based, is rather flat, so that fact did not really help much with my race.
In fact, my Garmin had measured a total of 514m of elevation gain… something that is probably quite impossible to get in a Singapore road race.
This route had been a new race route that was introduced this year, in order to give the marathon an added challenge. Previous years had actually been less hilly.
Added Lee, “it was a great route, though it was really challenging even from the beginning. I thought the route would be similar to last year where the first few kilometers would be flat, but that was not the case. I was amazed.”
Agreed Andy Tsui, 31, a Sales executive, “The course was very tough and challenging because there were lots of hills. The biggest challenge was the hill at 33km; I lost some speed there and slowed down, but managed to pick up my pace and continue on after that.”
Eldon however, had relished the challenge of the hills. He said, “The biggest challenge of the marathon was the hulls but I think that without the hills, it would have been boring. So the hills created a great balance.”
At the start of my run, the weather had been cool enough, thanks to the early start, but in the latter stages of the race, I found that the heat was coming out quite strongly.
However I felt that the tropical humidity was unfortunately present throughout my whole run, and this was rather energy sapping – especially when I was feeling exhausted in the latter stages of the race.
There was plenty of hydration though, and that really helped. The water stations were positioned every one or two kilometers along the route, serving either water or Lucozade.
Most of these were ice cold when I had them too, but unfortunately I did wind up with a couple of cups of lukewarm drink. But most of the time, I had ice cold drinks, fortunately.
Agreed Lee, “The hydration was perfect. There were a lot of drinks and on one occasion, I saw the volunteer even run alongside the runners to pass drinks to them, which was really nice.”
Said Andy, who had also shared the same sentiments, “The water stations were very well organized, with the stations being very frequent. I also loved the fact that I could grab water at the stations to drink without stopping and breaking my running momentum. This is something that not every race has, due to large crowds.”
He added, “But maybe the organizer could adopt having energy drinks in front and water at the back because at some of the stations, the energy drinks were at the back and so as a result, not everyone may know that energy drinks are available.”
Besides the hydration stations, the organizers also had cold sponges positioned at several points along the route. I was very grateful for these, as it was great in helping to cool me down along the way. This is something that the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon should really consider implementing too.
Gel and banana stations were also located at strategic points along the route so runner needs were really well taken care of throughout the entire marathon. Though I had prepared my own gels, I was still grateful that the gels being given out was the same brand that I am familiar with, as it meant that I could get extra gels if I needed them – without worrying about having stomach issues.
Another thing that I enjoyed about SCKLM was that there had been musicians positioned at a few locations along the route – to encourage runners to keep on pressing on. Hearing their musical instruments playing, really was motivating and gave me energy to continue when I was tired.
The volunteers and marshals also did a good job in keeping the traffic away from runners. Malaysian traffic is known to be quite notorious, but there was no point throughout the run when I felt that my safety was at risk. The roads were blocked with cones and cars and motorbikes were not really allowed to enter as the marshals were quite attentive at these junctions.
Occasionally, the odd motorbike did come through the closed running lanes a couple of times when I was running, but in these cases, the driver was not reckless and had seemed to be courteous enough to signal to, and let runners pass, rather than simply weaving in between runners.
The first half of my race had passed by quite uneventfully. As I ran, I allowed myself to absorb the sights and sounds of the KL city and the surrounding areas.
Unfortunately most of the stores were closed at the early hour, otherwise I may have taken slight detours to have a look at some of the more interesting shops and cafes that had caught my eye as I had passed! One of these had been a chocolate cafe.
Along the way, I noticed that a number of runners were wearing an extra small bib with the words, ‘Run, Evie Run’ printed on it, alongside their official SCKLM race bibs – this was to commemorate Malaysian ultra runner Evelyn Ang, who had been knocked down by a car while she was participating in the Klang City Marathon in December last year. She succumbed to her injuries in March this year.
I thought this was very touching and meaningful that so many runners had been touched by Evelyn. I had not had the chance to meet Evelyn personally but I was her Facebook friend. Throughout her years of running, she always had a smile for everyone and was always friendly and helpful towards all runners.
At the 19km point, we were required to take a white wristband that we were later supposed to exchange for our marathon finisher medal and tee shirt.
I admit that I had been expecting long queues of runners to line up for these wristbands, but I found that I didn’t really waste more than a couple of minutes here – the volunteers were very efficient in controlling the crowd and ensuring that runners received their wristbands quickly so that they could continue on with their race.
During the way, I also passed some runners who had recognized me. These included runners whom I had met at the Friendship Run the previous day and a runner from the KLCC Running Club, who reads my blog regularly. I was surprised to hear that he thought I look younger in real life as compared to in my photos!
Sometime during the second half of my race, the Full Marathon runners merged with the slower Half Marathoners, so I found myself having to weave through them. I was already beginning to feel shagged so this did not really help with my running momentum as it took extra effort to watch out for the walkers and weave past them.
The Full and the Half Marathoners split up again somewhere between the 29km to 30km point of the Marathon, but this split was not made clear enough, especially with runners from both categories present on the course.
Though there may have been signs to indicate the split, I felt that there could also have been a marshal present with a loud hailer to announce this out, to prevent any confusion altogether and eliminate the possibility of any runners inadvertently making the wrong turn.
In all of the races in Singapore that I have done that feature such splits between the different running categories, attentive marshals are always present to remind runners of such.
The last 10km or so of the Marathon was especially brutal. My body was heating up considerably, and I could really feel the humidity. As well, the constant running up and down on the hills were doing my tired legs no favors at all.
But I grit my teeth and managed to battle against the humidity and the hills, painfully jogging back to Dataran Merdeka – to complete 42.195km of running. The distance on my Garmin may have measured 44.3km when I crossed the finishing line, but I think that this had been due to GPS signal inaccuracies from my watch, though.
My timing may have been slower than some of the other marathons that I have done, but considering that SCKLM 2018 was one of the most challenging marathons I have taken part in, I’m happy to simply have completed the race.
Though I was never in actual danger of missing this year’s cut off time of 7 hours and 15 minutes myself, I later found out that the cut off time had been extended. Previous years of SCKLM had featured a cut off time of 7 hours for the Full Marathon. The reason for the extension had been to compensate runners who have to start from the back, as they would take almost 15 minutes to get to the Start Line.
There was a bit of a queue of runners waiting to collect their finisher entitlements after my run, but thankfully the queue had moved pretty fast and I was able to pick up my finisher medal, tee shirt, fruits (an apple and a pear) and hydration (one bottle of water and some Lucozade) after about ten to fifteen minutes.
I really loved the design of the finisher medal. When I received the medal, I thought that the revolving centre was quite cool and definitely quite fitting of the tenth edition of Malaysia’s iconic Marathon race.
Agreed Lee, “The finisher medal was really nice with the swinging pendulum in the centre.”
The design of finisher tee was also quite elegant looking in my opinion, but unfortunately the sizes came in unisex rather than in male and female cutting though.
Said Eldon, “This year’s tee shirt and medal was very nice.”
After the marathon, I hung around the race village for a while, to say ‘hi’ to a few friends and also see what was available there. A few sponsor booths had been around, to sell merchandise or offer their services to runners.
Lucozade was giving out cups of isotonic drink too, and their sweet, ice cold beverage had been really welcoming and refreshing at that point in time.
There was also a massage area for runners to relieve their sore muscles after the run and plenty of photo opportunities for runners to immortalise their marathon memories.
I stayed behind too, to wait for the final finishers to cross the line. This was because the last finishers were given a rousing end with confetti blasts and cheering spectators urging the runners home.
It had felt like a grand party that was full of intensity, watching the time tick by and urging the runners to push themselves and put on that final burst to make it to the end point in time. I also had the opportunity to unleash one of the confetti sticks, so I was caught up in the thick of the celebrations.
Besides celebrating the final finishers, SCKLM also celebrated their loyal runners as a sign of appreciation of their steadfast support of the event over the last ten years. One group of runners were accorded the special honour of having participated in all ten editions of SCKLM thus far.
This group, called the SCKLM Juggernauts, were able to choose customised bib numbers and personalised Race Entry Tees. They were also hosted by title sponsor Standard Chartered Bank in their hospitality marquee.
As a whole, I must say that though the route had been rather challenging, SCKLM 2018 had generally been one of the more well organised races that I have taken part in.
Other runners also agreed. Said Andy, “The logistics were very well organised. This event was definitely fitting to make the tenth anniversary of SCKLM; in fact I think that SCKLM is the most well organised race in Asia that I have taken part in to date.”
Agreed Kam Miew Foo, 40, a Purchaser, “I had a very good experience at SCKLM 2018. Being an international race, it was really well organised and I found that many runners had prepared themselves well for this race. So the quality of the field had been very high too.”
The organisers are also very pleased with how the tenth anniversary of SCKLM went.
Said Rainer, “It has been an amazing couple of days at SCKLM 2018 and we could not be happier with the turn out which has been our biggest yet, befitting our tenth anniversary celebrations.”
He added, “We sincerely hope that everyone had a wonderful time and that this tenth anniversary meant as much to you as it has done for us at Dirigo, as well as for everyone who had a hand in organising and executing this event.”
Thank you SCKLM for the opportunity to review the event.
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