Men's Health and Women's Health Night Run

My running adventure has taken me to places far and wide but I have yet to run in Putrajaya. A popular venue for running events, the administrative centre of Malaysia provides a beautiful scenery  with its natural landscape and architecture marvels.

So when I found out about the Men's Health Night Run in Putrajaya which was returning in March of 2015, I was excited to be a part of it, not only because it's a popular event, but also I wanted to run my first night run and what better venue to do it than at Putrajaya? I learned that this year the Men's Health Night Run was renamed the Men's Health and Women's Health Night Run as it's an event organized by the established  Men's Health (Malaysia) and its new sister publication, Women's Heatlh (Malaysia), so that meant that this was an inaugural MHWHNR. I signed up along with 7,500 participants.

The flag off point was outside the Palace of Justice, which houses six Courts of Appeal, two Federal Courts and 20 judge's chambers. In short, building with granite finish is massive! It was smart of the organizers to pick The Palace of Justice as a gathering place as you, just like me would not miss it even if you have not been to Precinct 3 in Putrajaya.

Forcing a smile in spite of a toothache

This was a 12km run and not a particularly easy run for me, despite my recent accomplishment in the Nike We Run KL (21km). The route was challenging with undulating hills to conquer; there was a point (around 8km) that defeated me and I resorted to walking due those darn hills. As I struggled more and more to move, my mantra was put one foot in front of the other and keep moving, no matter what. I was aware that many runners were passing me by but there little I could do about it. I had my battles to fight - sore quadriceps due to over training the day before and a toothache which I thought was a case of dentin hypersensitivity (how wrong was I when I went to my dentist friend to discover a huge cavity in my upper left second premolar!)

Aspiring Men's Health Cover Model

The final 3km was the toughest part of the race as I think again I had used up all of my energy reserve in that stretch. As I continued to engage in self-pep talk. I saw the grand Palace of Justice in the distance to my right and a glimmer of hope came to me as I knew that the finish line was within reach if I could persevere.

I crossed the finish line at 1:10, totally knackered. And relieved that I was able to complete this challenging night run.

Postscript: Net time: 1:09:56  
Rank: 305 out of 2313 in my category
My tooth was restored with glass-ionomer cement and is pain free for now.