Milo Breakfast Day Run 2017: Putrajaya

For the third year in a row, I ran the Milo Breakfast Day Run. Getting a bib for this run was like scoring the lottery. All 15,000 slots were snapped up in less than 24 hours. Luckily for me (maybe not), I was staying back late for work in the office when the registration opened up and managed to register 16 of my colleagues and their plus ones.

Fast forward to a month later and it was race day on 14 May at Anjung Floria, Putrajaya. Flag off was scheduled for 7am and at 645am, none of my colleagues were in sight....save for one. My colleagues has officially taken Malaysian timing to a whole new level.

Anyway, Putrajaya is the 7th and final city to host this year’s Milo Malaysia Breakfast Day. The Milo Malaysia Breakfast Day was held in 6 other cities over a period of 2 months across Malaysia. The cities visited this year included Penang (19th March), Kota Kinabalu (26 March), Kuching (2 April), Johor Bahru (8 April), Kuantan (16 April) and Kota Bahru (6 May) and saw close to 60,000 Malaysians including families participating.

The nation’s most anticipated breakfast event started off with the 3KM and 5KM fun runs who was officiated by Philomena Tan, Y.Bhg. Datuk Azizi Ahmad Termizi, Naib Presiden Jabatan Perkhidmatan Bandar, Perbadanan Putrajaya, Adnan Pawanteh, Head of Technical & Production MYSG, and Chew Soi Ping, Head of Sales MYSG.

At 715am, we were flagged off. After weaving my way through a 500 meters sea of walkers and run-and-stop walk runners, I set myself on a sub 7 minutes pace for the whole run and wanted to die. It would be a long time before I can run a marathon at that pace without wanting to vomit my lungs and heart out.

A choice of three hearty breakfasts awaited us at the end of the run at the Milo Breakfast Day village. And of course, the whole reason for wanting to join the event.....Milo from the Milo trucks! Rows and rows of those were prepared all over the park in tents. It was practically a Milo buffet.

Families and friends could also spent the rest of the morning participating in various games such the traditional chapteh, life size board games, basket ball and target football, activities including; creative and healthy breakfast making sessions, giant bubbles, bamboo dance while being entertained by numerous performances; among which were Zumba and Cheerleading. Participants also stood a chance to win Milo products and merchandise through lucky draws and treasure hunts as well as take a walk through the history of Milo at the Milo Heritage Booth.

A short shower of rain sent most of us scurrying back to our cars and in line with my post run tradition, I headed off for a nice bowl of sarawak laksa. Because ya know breakfast is very important.