No Names Mentioned: Gold Coast Airport Marathon 2015: Southern Cross University 10KM Race Report #GCAM15

Last year saw me running the same race with my wife who is doing her run for the first time ever and I have promised to run with her throughout the whole distance. As a results me and wifey clocked a very decent 1hr 09mins which was impressive for someone who have never train and running a race for the 1st time. We had so much fun making it one of the best 10k race I have ever run in.

GCAM14 SCU 10KM with wife

Because I had so much fun in the 2014 edition, this year sees me again taking up the Gold Coast Airport Marathon (GCAM15) Southern Cross University 10KM (SCU 10KM) race on the Saturday before the big race on Sunday. I wasn't going to do the race alone this year so I sell the idea to a few usual suspects (Jamie, Nick, Foo and Leong). "What? 10KM race before Marathon? you must be nuts" was the reaction from the group but in the end who wouldn't want to have a little fun before race day? I promised them they will have tonnes of fun and lots of photo opportunities LOL!

Before the start of Photothon

Saying that, the morning didn't really go as plan, I received an early text message from Jamie informing us that the north bound tram to race site had an incident and all services had been halted and would need to take a bus along the Gold Coast Hwy. Foo, Mok and I quickly walked together with a group of runners to the bus station hoping to catch the bus soonest giving us enough time to reach the race site. Two buses passed us by, already packed with runners without stopping and the stress began to build up. Without much luck, we have decided to hail a cab and share the cost along with a couple more runners. We reached the race site without much dramas after that and meet up with the rest of the gang for group photos before race. At about 6:10am, all of us walked the the D corral which was assigned on our bib number.

As the day break, the atmospheres and crowd was already full of excitement, and all of us just can't wait for the race to get going. With a few announcement from the emcee, the race started on time, with all the runners cheering with joy and immediately I knew I'm gonna have a lot more fun than last year with a bunch of jokers running together.

Jamie the legend spotted "Meb" the champ

Jamie with post race commitment, went off almost immediately with Man Hon running along with a much faster pace as time is of essence for him to get back in time. As for the rest of us... it was like mental patient breaking lose from asylum.. chaotic!!! With my limited range of vocabulary, I know words will not do justice to the amount of fun we had so I'll let the photos do the taking for me... LOL!!

Nick chatting up with the locals

Runners from Taiwan.. pretty aren't they? lol

Do you feel it already? Really, there wasn't much running involved in the race, for every 300m-400m we would stop for photos. At times we were shouting out at Foo to slow down so that we can make our monies worth for the race. More fun up ahead

Yee Hoo milking the cow to the max

We stopped at every water station to have a brief chat with the volunteers and making sure we thank everyone of them enough to make the run a wonderful experience. Half way point, a no names mentioned needed to go for a loo at the patrol station, so what to we do instead of waiting? More camwhoring!!!

Soon we reached the 2nd U-turn point heading back to the finishing stretch with about 3km to go, that said it didn't stop us from being a joker with the remaining distance. Enjoying every bit of the cheering from the huge crowd, the sign board that say "Hello, perfect strangers you can do it", the beautiful beach and on top of that all the friendly runners that would willingly jumped into the frame taking photos with us.

Nick enjoying all the high5s

As we chugged along reaching the 8km mark, I told the guys there will be 2 groups of street musician ahead playing they tunes entertaining the crowd. Soon enough we find ourselves back to the main straight before the finishing line but we have not stop fooling around like a bunch of id**t. I sincerely hope that our act did not disturbed or by any way blocking the more serious runner who is chasing for their personal best, because we aren't and just wanted to make our monies worth.

With less than 1KM to go, we were busy coming out with crazy idea for our finishing act. I think it was Foo if I recall correctly suggested that we should try to block each other right before the finishing line with the hope that the event photographer would capture the moment that we share together. As Nick and I ran down the finishing stretch before during our last year race, Foo and Yee Hoo waited for our signal to start pulling a prank on each other making us a complete fool in front of a huge crowd. We pushed and blocked each other, jostling all the way to the finishing chute and the crowd went crazy cheering and laughing at us.

Foo won the race!!

We crossed the line at 1hr 15mins together, it was by no mean our personal best but hey running is not always about chasing that personal best. Sometimes you needed to remind yourself how much you love this sports and you should always enjoy your run and have lots of fun regardless of the time you do.

SCU 10KM race will always be a bitter sweet race for me, year after year I recorded my 10KM personal worse time here. Saying that, it was also the best 10KM race I have ever run in year after year. Would i do it again and record another personal worse? You bet I will!!