PETALING JAYA: National towerrunner Soh Wai Ching has again made Malaysians proud by winning the championship position at the Bieg Na Szczyt Rondo 1! ( Ronda 1 Run Up!) towerrunning competition held on March 18 in Poland.
He achieved second place at the same event last year.
Soh ran up 38 floors with a total of 836 steps and achieved a new personal best for a one-time run up at 3m33.56s, and a two times run up at 7m24.01s.
His aim for the competition was to win against former world towerrunning champion Piotr Lobodzinski of Poland, who was competing on home ground.
“Aside from winning the championship, I aimed to beat his record and I was in great shape and ready for it,” Soh said, adding that he went all out for the competition and started well on the first run, pushing himself with determination to win the champion spot he lost last year.
“I was running at a 140 beats-per-minute pace while fully using the handrails. I was feeling great up to the 29th floor and kept telling myself that there were only eight floors left to go.
“I just had to give it my all, so I put in every shred of energy I had to go for it,” he told theSun.
For the first run, Soh dashed to the finishing line and clocked a time of 3m33.56s, which was an eight-second lead over Lobodzinski.
“I was quite pleased with the result but at the same time, I needed to assure myself that I must put up a decent performance on my second run, even though I knew it will be much slower than the first run’s time,” he said.
For the second run, Soh started at a much slower pace and only kicked off after the first half of the course. He managed to clock a time of 3m50.45s.
The next challenge Soh plans to take on is the Estonia Towerrunning National Championship at Tallinn Tower on April 2. The race will be worth 80 points in the towerrunner ranking of the Towerrunning World Association.