Firstly, congrats to Nut for finishing a 21km run!

After I-Can't-Remember how many runs I signed up and not turned up for, the PJ Half Marathon 10km run was my first run this year. Actually, it was my first run in 3 years. (Funnily enough, my last run was the PJ Half Marathon in 2004.)

10km is actually not that far a distance to cover manually. If you log in enough runs regularly, it's quite a nice, easy 1 hour plus run.

Problem was that (a) I had not logged in enough runs, (b) ok, let's not make general statements - I had not done any decent form of exercise in more than a week before the run, and (c) for some reason, the only memories I had of my last 10km run was of me panting miserably and questioning my sanity.

But what the hey. I paid hard-earned Ringgit to enter. So there I was, registering at 5.30am at the Kelana Jaya Stadium on a dark, humid Sunday morning.

I found Nut, and we sat down by the curb to wait for the run to begin. Meanwhile, some hard-core (read: crazy psycho) runners were warming up for their 21km by running laps up and down past us. Geez, show off some place else already.

About 10 minutes before we were flagged off, I drank/ate/swallowed my pack of Power Gel. I am now thankful I consumed that thing in the dark, because Nut later told me the colour of that stuff is as funky as it tastes. That's all I'm saying.

The 21km category was flagged off before the others. And us others were flagged off about 10 minutes after.

The first 3km of the run was quite nice. Easy, semi-flat road down the Federal Highway. And then I approached the first slope and walked. Why? Because Slopes=Death.

I kept up a moderate pace for the rest of the run, only stopping to take a drink or at Slopes=Death areas. Run, jog, run, jog. Before I knew it, a policeman (who was helping to direct traffic) told us it was just another 2km to go. Wah, so fast! And again, before I knew it, I was turning into the road leading to the stadium. And hey, there's the stadium! And hey, there's me running the 200m to the Finish Line! And hey, there are the crazy Kenyans who ran the 21km and finished it in 1 hour!

I apparently finished in 1hour 5mins. But I highly doubt the accuracy of whatever watch that timed me. Either the dude was snoozing. Or the route is shorter than 10km (my hunch). Based on my (un)fitness level, there is NO WAY I could have finished a 10km run in that time. Then again, I did take some funky tasting gel that contained 2x more caffeine than the average artificial energy.

I'm glad I brought my own bottle of Gatorade because the organizers kindly did not plan any drink stops along the route. During the run, I saw an old man who was clearly tired from lack of hydration. I offered him some of my drink, which he accepted.

Side effects from the run? Slightly sore legs (no thanks to my brilliant act of forgetting to stretch after the run) and a nauseous feeling (no thanks to funky Power Gel).

That said, would I take funky Power Gel again before a run? Hell, yeah!