Tropical Parkrunning

Glad that's over! 

Running In Kuala Lumpur is interesting! The 19th Taman Pudu Ulu parkrun Facebook page told us that the event was in danger of being cancelled due to air quality issues, we subsequently found out that this is due to smoke drifting over from other parts of Malaysia - the result of the annual burning of paddy fields. We arrived the night before and were up at six to catch a Grabcab (the local version of Uber) - the air seemed clear (and warm and sticky). This parkrun was set up by Harry, a Malaysian who had come across parkrun during his time as a student in Cardiff. Already he's got together a great team of helpers and the 100 plus runners consisted of a mix of locals, ex-pats and tourists. The run duly went ahead, I can only describe it as running through treacle in a hot shower so I was surprised with a time of 22:42 in 11th place. Vicky was also first in her age group with 35:11. We joined the organisers and other runners (including a chap who had just completed a parkrun world tour (i.e. managed to complete events in all countries where parkrun takes place) for a Malay breakfast - a roti bread with egg cooked in it - was actually pretty good.

Ready for launch?

KL as Kuala Lumpur is known by many of the locals, is a real mix of poverty and opulence. It's home to the Petronas Towers which were the tallest buildings in the world for a number of years. Seeing this close up at night is quite something - fairly close by but not easy to find was the Taps bar which had a selection of craft beer from all around the world - mostly very strong and at hugely inflated prices - I think they need a bit of competition to stop this nonsense. We had a quick drop of their lightest on offer. We did much prefer the ambience of the Coliseum Cafe, a colonial relic now surrounded by a street full of Indian department stores and malls. This was where the plantation owners hobnobbed and drank their G and T's. We settled for a reasonably priced Carlsberg. We quaffed our beer and speculated that the word 'malaise' must have originated here in this hot humid climate. (Only later did I sadly see that 'malaise' is derived from the French!)

What Ho chaps - ready for a snifter?