New Beginning: Road To Conquest

After a short sleep, Eliah wake up and goes to the bathroom to freshen up. The clock in the wall showing that the time now is 4.00am. It will take around 20 minutes by taxi to reach the race locations and it means he still got enough time get ready.

After few minutes, he exits from the bathroom and find a set of sports clothes from the drawer to wear. He put his sport shoes which was bought from local flea market. Organizer will provide some fruit and snack before the race. Hence he just takes an energy bar to get his stomach full. Too much food intake before the race is not a good move as it will affect his performance later.

Once his ready, he leaves his house in order to look for a taxi. Since his locations is not a strategic place, his effort are become waste. Luckily there is a fast food restaurant nearby which are still open, he decides to ask assistance from the restaurant waiter or worker to call a taxi using their apps. He come into the restaurant and asking assistance from one of the staff to call for a taxi to pick him up.

After few minutes of waiting in the restaurant, finally the taxi arrived at his locations. He moves swiftly and Eliah approach the driver.

"Could you bring me to Alpha building in Patrick Road" asked Eliah.

"Sure can, I know the place. Come get in the car and I will send you there" the driver answers him.

Eliah open the door and get in to the car. He sits at the front seat besides the driver as he believes it will be politer to sit at the front. As Eliah mind was fully focus onto the race, he did not try to strike any conversations with the driver during the journey. The driver also did not have intentions to chat with him since he look tired.

Once arrive at the destinations, Eliah pay the fare and immediately goes to find the organizer booth.

The reason he looks for the organizer booth is to confirm if there is any procedure or step he required to take to avoid any complication that can resulted him to being disqualified.

As of now, he can see that there is already a lot of people waiting at the free space besides the starting race. Eliah ignore the crowd and directly goes to the booth.

He found out that there is announcement board hang at the booth entrance and he take his time to read it carefully. Once he had read the announcement, he checks that he already fulfils all the requirement.

He proceeds collects his runner number from the organizer. Only runner with the intentions to win the race will collect their running tag number. For runners that just participate for their own personal achievement will not require to collect their tag number.

Eliah put his tag number at his front and the back of his shirt with the assistance from the organizer staff. He does some warm up after that. Eliah just do some simple warm up and most of the exercise are done by copy from other runner.

"Hi. My name is Edward, what is your name sir" one of the runner greet Eliah warmly.

"My name is Eliah. This is my first time joining this kind of marathon, so I kind bit of nervous now" Eliah replied humbly.

"Hahaha… It is normal to feel nervous especially this is your first race. But this what make things get exciting right. You can feel the adrenaline ready to pump. I am not able to provide any advice since I am also nervous as we speak. I can only wish you luck in this race."

"Thank your sir. I wish you good luck too"

After the short conversations, organizer announce that the race will start in few minutes and required for the runner to be ready at the starting line. For runner that wear the number are required to move at the front and those without number to asked to move at the back. This to provide better space for runner that want to compete for the champion.

Eliah did not goes at the front row, but decides to start the race from the middle. The reason for this is to reduce his nervousness and calm his mind which is quite successful to achieve its objective.

Silent ensues within the runner as they are waiting for the organizer to start the race.

'All runner standby. We will start the race after the shot fire. Now start the countdown 5,4,3,2 and

Pang!!!

A gunshot was on the air indicate that the runner may start to run.

Since Eliah is in the middle of the line, the runner is run closely with each other and he can only run by following the group pace.

After few tens of meter, the runner is no longer crowded badly compare at the starting line and everyone already had their own space to run comfortably. Eliah start to speed up his run and he can spot that the leading runner is quite far ahead. Based on his training, he thinks that he still can go faster but finally decides not to since the race is still early and he not yet get his focus in place.

Once the distance had reach approximately 1km, Eliah start to go faster since he already starts to feel more into the race. His actions cause him to overtake several runners in this few minutes. He reluctant to join any group runner since he is more comfortable to run solo since this is the best strategy for him in this race. Unless he had been trained formally, he might join any group that match with his run tempo.

Currently Eliah is fully focusing his mind on the running, he will grab drink or food given by the volunteer in order to replenish his energy or to cool down his body temperature. He starting to feel better and more focus into the race.

'I can do this. I can do this' Eliah try to motivate himself once he loses his focus. He can feel that his body is in best conditions and can still goes faster. However, he had plan his tactic to only maintain his running tempo as per training and only goes faster after he had cover half of the distance. This to have him better judgement on his body capabilities to complete the race.

Compare to other runners that equip with better running gear, Eliah is at huge disadvantage at this aspect. He unable to afford watch or other equipment that can detect his body condition which normally use by runner to have better indications on how did their body status. He totally depends on six sense to check his body status or to confirm his time.

After few kilometres he already overtakes a lot of runner and there is only a view a few runners ahead of him. He unable to confirm who and where is the first runners since he loss of the leader sight during the starting line since he did not start at the front. Hence he assumes the worst that the leader is very far ahead and not in his sight.

On the meantime, unaware of what happened around, Eliah actually attract some of the other runner's attentions since his clothes and shoes which are not very suitable to be wear for athlete that wish to compete at high level. His lack of running technique also makes it too obvious for other runner try not to notice. Even with this kind of disadvantage Eliah still run faster than them that cause some of the runner to feel surprise and some of them feel jealous.

Now Eliah shirt was already drenched with his sweat. He can feel that his body temperature rising up. As he already improves his stamina and agility stat, he manages to positions himself at top 20. However, Eliah unaware of this due to his lack of experience.

Eliah aim as of now is to maintain his running pace and reach the half marathon distance. Due to his lack of experience Eliah unable to focus a lot on the run since he need to split his attention to spot any indicator or information to confirm the distance that he had covered.

After few whiles, he manages to spots a board at the road side to confirm that he just covers half of the distance.

Since he knows that he had cover half of the run, he starts to plan his actions whether to maintain or increase his running pace. Since he can feel that he is still full of energy, Eliah decides to run faster from his current pace. As he had upgrade his stat, Eliah feel more confident with his running and become less hesitant on his planning.

As of now, he already passed several more runner. Most of the runner that was passed by him was shocked with his speed which look like a sprinter running for 100 meter. Since most of the runner that was passed by him at this level are professional athlete, their amazement become double since they can see that Eliah is lacking in running technique and his speed is purely because of his amazing athletic body.

Eliah did not aware the attentions that he gets and still continue to run at his own pace. Actually based on his current time, he already scores a good time which was not far behind from the national record. Although it still had quite some gap from world record, still it can show as an amazing record considered that this is only a small amateur race. All top runner from all over the country or world did not participate in this run. However, there is some number of competitive runner join this race.

Now he is already reached the 35km mark. Eliah did not spot any runner ahead of him and same as previous assumptions, he still thinks that the leader is still far ahead. Since he knows that there is only a few kilometres to go, he increases his speed in order to push his body to the limit. He can feel that his body got still a lot of energy reserves and he can run faster in to maximise his body potential. He knows that in order to record a good time, he will need to push his body to the limit and not reserves any energy. He never tries to aim to beat the world record since it was still far away, but he really wishes if his time enough to amaze the company representative to recommend him to join any team to become their athlete or provide him with chances to exploit his athletic ability to earn more money.

Now his both his sport shirt and short are already drenched with sweat and become wetter. He starts to feel uncomfortable with his leg due to his low quality shoes. He understands that his shoes are not suitable for long distance running, but he did not have any options to go for better shoes due to lack of funds.

After several minutes, he starts to hear some encouragement upon him besides the road. He also notices that there is some people are start to appearing at the side of the road cheering for the runner. After taking a corner and pass a building at this left, he can see that the running track is straight up to the end line ahead. Eliah decide to push his body again and his running speed start to increase. He can feel that his body become lighter and more focus to on the running itself. He had forgot all the stress and problem in his life and at one moment he feel good about himself and no longer feel depressed about his life situations.

He so focusses with the running that he did not aware anything that was happen around him. All the cheers from the spectator are unheard at his ear. The cheers from the spectator become noisier as he run and become nearer to complete the race.

Step by step he takes to run and the end line is become nearer in his eyes. Eliah notice that there is several person awaiting him at the end of the line. He assumes this people are part of the organizer or sponsor for this race.

100, 70, 40 meter, Eliah become nearer to complete the race. Finally, he ends the race and like other runners that he saw in tv, he up both of his hand to the air to celebrate like a champion.

Once he completes the race, he can hear a lot of congratulations to him and at this moment he knows that he won the race. One medic guy approach him and check his conditions. He feels very tired and all in his mind is to lie down on the road. However, the medic guy asking encourage to not stop moving and do some walking to ensure his body had a proper cool down sessions. This to avoid any injury arise due to improper resting after a vigorous activity.

After a few while, he can feel his body better and he starts to focus on his mission. He knows that he had won the race but not his record time. Since he did not have watches to record his time, he will need to ask his time from the organizer.

He walks into one of the staff that he spots at the corner which is nearest to him.

"Excuse me, could you advise me what is my record time since I did not manage to record my time" Eliah asked the staff.

"Let me bring you to the man in charge since he the one that keep all the record" the staff answered and bring him to meet the man which are stand at the other side.

The man is wearing shirt showing the sponsor name are now walking towards him, hug him and congratulate him.

Eliah hug him back and ask "Sorry sir. Can I know my running time since I did not record it"?

"Sure. You had impressive record time at 2:14:34. You might need to know that if this is an official race, you already set a national record. In fact, your time can be considering as one of the best time in the world already. Just pity that this is not an official race. Hence your time can not being consider as national record." that man answer him. There is look of regret on his face.