Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2009

KL will host the Standard Chartered Maraton on June 28th. Many people are exited about this run and the buzz is slowly building. The Early Bird booking finishes end of the week so I decided to dig a little deeper yesterday evening and see whether I was going to run this event or not.

First surprise, the website itself was not user friendly. It did not display nicely in my firefox and the information was not straight forward. Still, I found my way around.

I started with the idea to run a 10K. Not that impressive, I know. But on 10K I could run with my wife and frankly, while I can run 10K easily, the stretch to 20 may be a bit much. Still, I started thinking about it and getting motivated to run the 20. After all, with a little dedication and two months training in front of me it should not be too difficult.

So I went to check the registration process and fees. Everyone told me it would be RM40, I though ok, sound a fair deal to me. Unfortunately, the RM40 deal is only for Malaysian citizens. Foreign passport holders fee goes up to USD40. Even if you live in Malaysia, have a work permit, pay your taxes and all, still USD40. I was pissed. So pissed actually it tainted the all experience.

I spent some time checking the run, their “run for a cause” concept, questioning myself whether I was going to run 20 or not, started gathering motivation and other, only to discover that I was a wallet to be plucked. Like so many times in Malaysia.

It really gave me a bad image of Standard Chartered and the KL Marathon thing. Should it rain on the day, I wouldn’t feel bad for them…