Going To The Run: Blood Runner in Putrajaya

To those of you who read my teaser posted on July 30, I'm here to tell you that I completed the Blood Runner in Putrajaya on July 31 and survived to tell the tale..

The Blood Runner is a werewolf-themed urban obstacle night race, promoted as Asia's first by the organizer, Switch Strategies. Set in the popular venue for night race events, Putrajaya, the race involved 10km of running on trail, road and pavement. Along the way there were obstacles that required participants to carry, jump, climb, balance and scramble through the streets of Putrajaya.

I ran in Wave 7 (10:30pm) along with my friend Ainal. We were flagged off around11pm - the delay was due to poor weather conditions earlier. I found out later that there were celebs among the 5000 runners on that night.

The first obstacle involved carrying water drums for a distance of 200m. The one I carried weighed a tonne; I quickly realised that I finally understood what it means when people say they feel the weight of the world on their shoulders.

Immediately after the first obstacle, the night was more of a personal hell than a fun-filled playground. Exhausted and running on low energy, I wondered how I would be able to pull through and the thought of letting the werewolves bite me seemed exciting to me, until it occurred to me that I had my energy gel with me. I brought two energy gels with me to heed the advice contained in the race guide. I gulped down my first High5 energy gel and almost immediately felt its effects. Recharged with a new lifeline, I was ready to take on the next obstacles..

The other obstacles surprisingly, were less tough for me. They involved crossing a series of tyres, climbing over some truck tyres and jumping over a wall. I conquered those. And I picked up pace in my run...

Next part of the course was a trail run. I never knew there exists a forest in Putrajaya and running in the forest at night was frightening. The Petzl Tikkina was a great help for me to avoid running into other participants, many of whom had slowed down due unfamiliarity with the trail and the fear of running into a werewolf. Their howling of those creatures were enough to send chills down one's spine. But I was focused to pick up my pace and catch up with the runners in the earlier waves. It was a perfect chance for me to run pass the walkers, so I switched to the high intensity mode on my headlamp and shouted, "Excuse me, passing through".. It worked! Fabulous!

The next obstacle was the sideways wall climbing challenge. Judging by long queue and the number of participants instructed to do air squats as penalty for failing the complete the challenge, I knew I needed concentration, endurance and coordination to overcome this obstacle. I quaffed the second energy gel and got myself psyched up for it. And man... I got through it successfully - with a few cuts on my forearms, but it's no biggie.

One part of the course was in the basement of a car park of a complex and it was here that I finally came face to face with two werewolves. These werewolves were in high spirits and excited to see the participants. When I passed them, they gave me a high five! The creatures (or actors) were there to provide a feel-good factor and they certainly delivered.

After the brush with werewolves, the obstacles that greeted me next were more challenging. There were the balancing beams (I failed this), monkey bars, the climbing over a net mounted on a bus, and more climbing - on inclined planes with holes in them. And then there were the jumps over the M Walls - the joint surfaces were narrow and I heard a few participants fall (big thud.. ouch!) Hope they're were OK to carry on. The M Walls featured again at the end, just before the finish line...

And then I saw the giant werewolf float in the distance and I knew that I have all but completed the run...

I gave a high jumped, reached for the fangs of the werewolf float, feeling fantastic at having completed the inaugural Blood Runner...