This is an anxious week for runners in KL.
The worsening haze situation in KL could possibly see (*touch wood*) the cancellation of the Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2013 if we are not graced by rain (and lots of it!) by Wednesday. There are two camps: 1) those who believe that the show must go on, and that somehow the SCKL organizers have access to the best bomoh hujan there is and 2) that we must accept the fact that even NY Marathon did not start last year due to Sandy.
It comes to the question of how much would we sacrifice to sacrifice a race, I think. When Sandy happened and I read the newspaper reports of Malaysian runners who whined about how their New York holiday was spoiled- I got angry. I mean, for fuck's sake- hospitals & homes were out of power, people were in need of clean water and food- and all you care about is how your holiday post race is spoiled? Yes, I understand completely the frustrations of training for at least 18 weeks for perhaps the biggest, most important, monumental race in a runner's life only for the event itself to be cancelled, but when a natural disaster happens, we must look inside ourselves as humans and lend a helping hand, do we not? When Boston happened, we saw this side of humanity. Emotionally affected runners from all over the globe organized runs to lift each others spirits up. For when we take away all of our ego, our competitiveness for PBs, our differences in religion/politics/Newtons vs Cloud vs Asics vs Vibram vs barefoot running and whatever- at the core, we are all in it, we are all out there sweating and grunting and putting one foot down after the other because we are runners. We are a camaraderie brought together by the love for the sport. And I can't explain this to you if you don't understand it to begin with. And this thing- I think, nay, I believe- is the core of humanity.
So we might or might not run this Sunday. You know what, if this was to be my first Full Marathon, I would be really, extremely, absofuckinglutely gutted too. (Hey, I'm praying for a bridge to be done on time and for it to please all ye mighty powers of the universe please don't let it collapse for my own deflowering... >.< ). But maybe, just maybe- we can view it as giving us more time to train, and that maybe running in this heat would not give us the best timing anyway. And we can always, always sign up for the next run.
And maybe, we can start to be kinder towards the environment. Let's all bring water bottles on our runs and get it re-filled instead of using gazillion paper cups where we only take a sip and throw everything else away. Maybe we can try and throw the banana peels into the bins provided and help petition for these peels to be used as compost. Perhaps ask/get marathon organizers to plant a seedling for every runner that participate in the event or we can plant a seedling for every race we run in? We can always do trail runs and appreciate the environment more, and give thanks for the existence of such trails still in our steel-filled forest cities. We can always try to appreciate Mother Nature more and do our small parts.
Because hey, I've had enough of this haze and I'm sure many do too.
One thing I won't suggest though, because I've tried it myself, is treadmill running. Well, unless google-specs is available and affordable in the near future and we have a stimulation/app that allows us to experience outdoor running while still on a treadmill, then maybe, just maybe we can give treadmills a chance. Heh. Though I can't help but hope for some sports-obsessed rich person to come up with the idea of a sports-based mall where there's a 5km circuit which we can run in loops indoors and maybe a wall-climbing thing in the middle with sport shops, cafés and gyms available?
The one still praying for rain, and for SCKL to go on in better conditions,
