Ice Watch Light Up The Night Run (IWLUTNR)

Event No:    40
Event Title:  Ice Watch Light Up The Night Run
Event Type: Run - Road
Category:    10 Kms - Men - Open
Event Date: 5 Dec 2015
Location:     Plaza Shah Alam, Shah Alam

The Ice Watch Light Up The Night Run (IWLUTNR) is one of it's kind of event organized for the very first time in Shah Alam. To cater a variety of runners they opened the event with two categories - 5 Kms and 10 Kms, which caters to all sorts of runners from Elite to casual.

The event organizer chose "Plaza Shah Alam" as the starting / finishing point for the event, the stage and the start / finish line were well decorated with colorful lights n balloons. One of the good part of this event is they have pacer service for the 10 Kms participants ranging from 9 Min to 7 Min per Km, which you'll hardly see for a fun event.

To add some curiosity and to grab more participants - they introduced a free Ice Watch give away contest for every successful 6th registration - I'm one of the lucky 6th person to get a free Ice Watch (felt so happy seeing my name in the give away contest).

As communicated at the time of registration; the event tee was not by Compressport instead they changed it to Ultron later (communication was sent out to the participants on the change) - the quality of tee is pretty good with new design material and standards by Ultron (I'm pretty happy with the tee provided by Ultron - thanks for the micro dry technology).

I was a bit tired with an event in the morning (Roentgen Run - 8+ Kms at Bukit Jalil) and later in the day went out to collect my race kit for the Sunday Morning Run (Forest Trail Run, FRIM's). But, I never gave up to participate in the event.

Due to traffic glitches, I reached the venue at 7:55 PM and the flag off time for the 10 Kms category is at 8:00 PM. Hardly, I had time to warm up myself. I pushed thru the crowd and tried to make my place near to the start line; as communicated the flag off happened around 8:00 - 8:05 PM.

Running with Pacers was my mantra for the day, after seeing the pacer service. I chose the 7 Min/Km Pacer and tried to run along with them, few times I crossed them and few times I bumped with them, at few places when I tried to catch up my breath due to overrunning I fall behind the pacers.

The route was pretty well organized with route marshals (few places they were not present and running with the traffic made us feel pretty hard). The route started at Plaza Shah Alam and went thru Seksyen 5, 6, 3, 11, Shah Alam Mosque and thru some residential areas and finally ended back at Seksyen 9 "Plaza Shah Alam".

The water stations were placed roughly at 3.5 Kms and 7 Kms points - they served the water in bottles instead of traditional paper cups (much appreciated) and at 7 Kms they served isotonic drinks along with water.

Most of the route was flat except few uphills at around 8th Km mark and 10 Km mark near to the finish line. The last 1.5 Kms we ran thru the traffic and it was not pretty well managed by the marshals (felt a bit worried to run with the traffic), other than this particular place; rest of the route was organized pretty well.

Even though I ran for 8 Kms in the morning, I did able to cross the finish line in 70 Minutes, last 1.5 Kms I was not with the pacers though. As soon as we crossed the finish line, I saw a pretty big queue and wondered looking at it; understood that the queue was for Red Bull (hahah). Collected my finisher medal along with a banana and a water bottle (not to forget Red Bull as well, but I haven't collected mine) to quench my thirst and post race recovery.

Only at the start and finish line there were lights to light up the night, but rest of the route it was pretty normal, I thought the race will be similar to "Electric Run" with few surprises - but there were none and they have only provided two glow sticks as part of the race kit.

As soon as the run finished, I was waiting in the pretty long queue to collect my Ice Watch, there was no choice given to us for selecting the color - they gave me a pink color watch, luckily I was able to exchange with a fellow run for an yellow watch.

Before leaving the place went and met the Ultron team - 'Vincent' who was representing Ultron in the event, had some quick chat and took some photos and then moved on from the venue.

Overall, the race was organized pretty well; even though it was their first event. Hope next year they will come up few more surprises and better lights along the race route.

Thanks to the organizers for the event which was well organized in all the aspects of the event. Will look out for their next year event to participate.