Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Sarawak Marathon - Here We Come

I believe most of us who are going for the Sarawak Marathon would progressively pack their luggage as departure date is this Saturday morning, 25 March.

For runners in Tony and Vivian Ngok’s group, we have to pack more gears. First would be running apparel and shoes for the Sunday morning marathon race; trekking apparel for trekking up Gunung Santubong the next day. And lastly, swimming gears for relaxing at the Damai Beach Resorts.

As you can see, the coming weekend is packed with activities: from the hill top to the sea deep, not forgetting running a marathon on the plain. The effect is scaled down a little; otherwise, it would be “from the mountain top to the ocean deep” …

According to the email notification from Tony, the brochures say:
All manner of attractions are here: sleepy fishing villages, primary rainforest, superb seafood restaurants, an Arnold Palmer-designed golf course, a "living museum" and luxury beach resorts. On a clear day, the Santubong area offers spectacular sunsets, as the sun sinks slowly into the sea framed by Sarawak’s rolling hills on one side and scattered islands on the other.

Wow! That sound idealistic and a perfect place for holidaying after the marathon race.

As I understand from Tony, we will be putting up the first night at Singgahsana Lodge staying in dormitory type. A total of 10 boys and girls would be in one dorm. For runners, I think that would not be much problem as we have conditioned our bodies to be very adaptive to the environment. For those who are used to only one person per hotel room type, this would be another good training ground to condition oneself to be closer to your running friends.

However, there would be a slight problem as runners do snore at night. If there are two runners snore from either corner and you are sandwiched in between, that would be like stereo-sound effect. Worst still, if there are from four corners of the room, that would be like surround-sound effect. Depending on the intensity, it would either be DDS (Dolby Digital Sound), SSS (Sony Surround Sound) or THX effect. Whatever is the sound effect, one thing is certain: that you would stay awake the whole night be entertained by the orchestra.

According to the emails notification from Sonny Ng with The Organizer, there will be free transport service to ferry the runners at Harbour View Hotel (which is a short distance from Singgahsana Lodge; no problem at all for runners) to and fro the starting area to collect bibs on Saturday and on Sunday morning – the race day. That is very thoughtful of The Organizer.

The Sarawak Marathon is actually the first full marathon organized by The Organizer. The experience they gain arising from staging this event would be of valuable to hold notable and bigger events in future. Following Singapore’s footstep, it is indeed an excellent move to attract tourists to Sarawak. For sure, about 100 runners from Pacesetters Club would be spending money there for the extended holidays.

BTW, effective Thursday 23 March, two days before we depart for Kuching, Air Asia would be operating from the new LCC Terminal (Low Cost Carrier) located next to KLIA. A new shuttle bus service will ply between the terminal and KL Sentral half-hourly, charging RM9 each way.

To those runners who are going for this run, wishing you good times there and achieve your PB (personal best) timing. For other runners who will miss this run, I hope that we could meet again next year for another Sarawak Marathon stint.

By KC

2 comments:

May Ching said...

Truly a sunshine team!!! Running, climbing, swimming in one long weekend!!! I'm sure everyone will be 2 shades darker!

C-CUBE said...

good luck KC & the sunshine team, and njoy urself. and dont forget to try sarawak laksa and kor low min - vely der tasty n different