Report: Taiping International Marathon 2012

By Aiman Cheah

Date: 16th September 2012 (Sunday)
Time: 5:00am
Venue: Padang Esplanade, Taiping
Distance: 21km
Result: DNS

I registered for the event on 30th April, 2012.  It was meant for aholiday too as I bought the Taiping Zoo tickets and Taiping Night Safari during MATTA Fair in March for 20% discount.  I made arrangement for the hotel too.

I have made up my mind not to 'punish' myself with such distance which was actually not too big a task before May.  I had come to Taiping to relax and enjoy.

I was the least impressed with the volunteers for the event.  Taking the race kit was just as tiring as the 3km race if not more.  It took about 15 minutes to take Afiqah's and Akmal's race kit and another 20 minutes for my own race kit.  I had to ask for the goodie bag receipt and the goodie bag receipt was not found for my own bib...

 I was told that the receipt was not important as I was going through the receipts...  I guess the volunteer was right that it was not important.  It was not important for her.  There are many things that volunteers and organizer normally do not feel important.

The runners' time is certainly not important as they do not have a system to speed up the race kit collection process.  Perhaps, it is important for them to punish the runners in the sweltering heat looking at their antics while waiting for race kit collection.

The poor official was unable to control the children when the gate was opened.  One girl fell and was crying but he was too 'stunned' to react. Other parents shouted at the children not to stampede and the poor girl was quickly rescued.

I told my children to start from the back... just enjoy the run.  They had not trained to win and they certainly won't win.  I guided them with a relaxing pace of about 9mins per km.  As the race progressed they managed to overtake quite a number of runners... task accomplished. They should be within the top 200 as only 200 medals were provided in each of these categories.

About 200m from finished somebody called me and I was surprised to see my host blogger.

My children completed the race is about 33 minutes.  Did not see Haris in the field and decided to go home after enjoying the nasi lemak (the kids prefer Mc D's burger...)  Afiqah was not feeling well.

I did not know that she could not sleep well that night.  Fortunately, she was fine after having a nap and we were able to enjoy our trip to the zoo in the afternoon.


Surprised to see Mr Lim sitting and taking photos.  Signal to him to take my children's photos.

Afiqah was slightly ahead of her brother.

Mission accomplished for Akmal

Thanks, Mr Lim for the lovely pictures.

Pictures courtesy of runwitme