2013 The Age Run Melbourne

Remember this moment. You've earned it.

The Age is the one of the major local newspaper in Victoria. Of late, they have decided to limit the number of free articles to 30 a month, which is a pain. Anyway, this is not a whinging post on the limited free newspaper articles, but probably a whinging post on an expensive but hardly-any-freebies-run.

This run was my second run in Australia - first was in NSW, a baby 5 km fun run which I participated on my own, alone when I was in a dark place. This was my first in VIC. 5 km was a baby run, this was a toddler effort of 10 km. When I did the 5 km, I basically just winged it, because I wanted to do something different. On the other hand, when I did this 10 km, I know I could managed a 5 km run, though 10 km was probably a stretch. Little P let me had the final say of either a 5 km or a 10 km. I suspect she had me on voodoo or some sort of spell, that led me into signing up for a 10 km run.

It was by no means cheap, we paid $50 per head. Race pack consisted of a running bib, 2 safety pins and a timing tag. Timing tags not returned will incur a $50 replacement charge *choke*. Due to our massive disappointment with the measley race pack, we also grab a green bag with the day's newspaper on the day we collected the race pack. The other freebie was a small towel because we downloaded a free app onto our phone.

We collected the race pack just a day before the race day, and it was pouring like no tomorrow. It was forecasted that run day itself would be a rainy day as well but all was good. Despite it looked sunny and warm, it was cold and windy on a Melbourne winter day.

We were late, despite making plans to sneakily joined the earlier wave just in case we were booted out for being too slow. Somehow there were just too many holes in our plans. I even had to rush back to the apartment to grab some safety pin and we got lost trying to locate the baggage area. We ended up late for our own flagged off session. We were hoping to fly under the radar but like how you always get called by the teacher when you don't know the answer to a question, the MC happily announced that we were late by saying, "Where were you guys? You were late!"

I didn't take a lot of photos during the run, this photo above was the only I took because I realised it was hard for me to continue the momentum of running. After 5 km, I was thinking (many times), "Why on earth do I signed up for this again?" Grin.

As you can tell by now, I am not a very motivated runner, but I was stubborn enough to finish the run. What did we get after run? Just a bottle of water and a small snack bar, not very exciting indeed. Oh, and a medal.

That being said, after this run I have been diligently trying to run four days a week, Monday to Thursday during my lunch hour break and happy to report that I have been enjoying these 6.5 km runs. ^^


Side note: My colleagues at work have been introducing old movies to me lately - Blade Runner and Running Man.