To kick off the tenth anniversary celebrations of the Standard Chartered KL Marathon (SCKLM), the Friendship Run took place at the Dataran Merdeka this morning.

Click here to view the StanChart KL Marathon 2018 Friendship Run photos.

Click here to read the Race Review: StanChart KL Marathon 2018.

The Friendship Run has become a firm fixture in the SCKLM Race Programme and is meant for Full Marathon runners who would like to have a warm up on the day before the big event tomorrow.

This 5km Fun Run is also a great way for local and international runners to meet and mingle over a pasta and carbo loading breakfast after the fun run.

I took part in the Friendship Run. This had been flagged off at 7am.

So I reached Dataran Merdeka at about 6.15pm and headed to the registration tent.

As I made my way through the relatively quiet streets in the wee hours of the morning to get to the start line of the Friendship Run, I could not help but keep thinking to myself that on the morning of the marathon, this very area would be crowded with throngs of runners.

The first thing that I had noticed when I reached the race site, was that there were plenty of runners who had dressed up in fantastic outfits to brighten up the occasion. There was a male runner wearing a tutu, a Super Girl “Aunty” wearing a blue cape, and a lady in a Chinese cheongsam.

I took the opportunity to mix and mingle with some of the other runners too. Everyone was rather friendly and there was a very relaxed, informal vibe in the air. It was a great representation of the camaraderie of the running community in Malaysia as well as the region.

At about 6.45am, there were speeches given by Abrar A. Anwar, Managing Director and CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia as well as Rainer Biemans, Director of Dirigo Events and Project Director of SCKLM.

Both of them shared more about the inception of SCKLM and its humble beginnings, and how the race has grown in numbers over the years to become the premiere running event in Malaysia.

This year, SCKLM is set to be the largest edition of the event yet, with more than 38,000 runners taking part and firmly establishing Malaysia on the global running calendar.

Said Rainer, “We started the Friendship Run three years ago, primarily to foster relationships and we are happy to report that due to the fantastic response, this will become a permanent ancillary event of the SCKLM.”

He added, “I am happy and grateful to have a loyal running community who comes back to support SCKLM each year.”

Altogether, there had been more than 180 runners from 14 countries at the Friendship Run, including Malaysia, which is more than double the number from last year. There had been a couple of runners from countries like Hong Kong and even Australia, too.

Abrar himself also took part in the Friendship Run too.

Said Abrar, “I had wanted to experience the positive vibes of the Friendship Run first hand and get to meet some local and international runners. As title sponsors over the last decade, we have experienced the power of the marathon in bringing people together from all walks of life in the pursuit of competition, health, life goals and even raising funds for charity.”

He added, “The drive and commitment in finishing a long distance race truly fits well with our DNA as a Bank.”

The organisers also held an informal Planking Challenge to kick-start the Friendship Run and the rules were simple – the person who could hold a plank position for the longest amount of time was the winner. In the end, the two victors had managed a whopping ten minutes in the plank position.

Prior to the flag off of the run too, there was a group photo taking session and then each runner was given a helium balloon with the flag of his or her country printed on it.

Then after taking a final group photo at the start/finish arch, we were then good to go.

Taking part in the Friendship Run had been a lot of fun. The route was a simple loop around the Dataran Merdeka area and its vicinity, and along the way, I got to know some of the runners better – as we spent the time chatting to each other on all sorts of topics under the sun during the slow and easy run, whilst taking in the sights and sounds of Kuala Lumpur along the way.

So as such, the time passed all too quickly and before I knew it, we were back at the finishing arch.

The weather had been not too bad for running too, for tropical standards, as it was slightly cloudy, and so this took away some of the heat. But I could still feel the humidity in the air, unfortunately.

And to ensure the safety of the runners as the roads

had not been entirely closed off for the Friendship Run, we were followed by auxiliary police on their motorbikes. So despite the Malaysian roads often being notorious for safety hazards, I never felt as though I was in danger of the oncoming traffic, at any point in time during the Friendship Run. So it was a good job done on the part of the organisers.

And with so many runners carrying balloons running along the streets, there were times when I did feel as though we were a big congregation of pacers running through the streets of Malaysia! This is because pacers traditionally run with balloons – to increase their visibility amongst the pack of runners.

Post run, there was a lot of photo taking with the new friends whom we had met along the way, as well as old friends coming together to mark yet another marathon milestone.

I took photos with a few of the runners whom I had met at the session, in order to mark the memories.

Everyone also clapped and cheered whenever someone crossed the finishing line. It definitely felt very inclusive, as we were all celebrating our shared passion for running, despite the countries where we had all come from.

A few photographers were also on standby to take pictures of runners coming in, and this had also helped to add to the fun and social aspect of the Friendship Run event.

I exchanged contact numbers with another Singaporean runner at the event too, and we had both wished each other good luck for the marathon too.

Then we headed up to the VIP tent for the pasta buffet breakfast. The spread was quite generous – there was spaghetti bolognese, roti canai, egg omelet, fresh fruits, flavoured yoghurt, assorted cereals with milk, bread and even chocolate cake. The food was also quite yummy, and my favourite item was probably the mini slices of chocolate cake.

The event emcee had also lightened up the mood by asking runners random questions relating to SCKLM and the first person to give the right answer would win some SCKLM merchandise. Runners were having plenty of fun trying to guess the answers to the questions, and attempting to beat each other to getting the right response.

The Friendship Run ended with another group photo taking session before we all then called it a day and parted ways. Some of us wished each other luck for the big day ahead tomorrow, when most of us would be running in the Full Marathon.