FIRSTtimer: A Jakarta Car Free Day Jog
A Car Free Day jog event is a regular in Jakarta. It is a weekly routine to not let passing cars and motorbikes come near the busiest central main roads of Jakarta where all the businesses ordinarily takes place. The event started early at dawn, ended at 11 AM and the whole main road will be all cramped up by joggers from youngest to oldest, the poorest the richest. The event is held every Sunday and I HAVE NEVER gone jogging before. Not a fan of working out and getting some stuff real. My mom, in the other side, has been looking all forward to be on that road, running. She got herself all set up last week and ran along the road with my aunt who lives nearby and my sister. I didn't feel like running in the heat last week and refused to run with them. Mom's persuasion eventually came to a big success last night on getting my lazy butt to work out and run.
Because us Indonesians are relatively laid-back, I found most of the people on the road were walking not running. There are like 40-45% of them who ran but the rest were just treating the Car Free Day as if they were just having a picnic. We walked fast, not running and I enjoyed my walk. Things were about to change as I finished my first kilometer. The street that we were running on stretches about 18 km and was divided by ring roads in the middle. My first minutes there were awesome, right until we hit that ring road point. I began to feel fatigue. I got sweat running down my head, burning leg muscles and the same burning sensation on my feet. Which was not a thing that I really bothered at the time because I was pumped up for an exercise. There were Ondel-Ondel (Jakarta giant puppets with a loud procession) among the joggers, blind married couples trying to earn money out of sympathy by singing, and some random Violinists who sounded like they are constantly pressing a wrong key (some were good though) but bowed like a virtuoso to cheer up the joggers. However, as I dealt with the pain and the burns, I got carried away by the views of tall buildings and some unique 'cheer-up' attractions. There were people walking their dogs on leashes. Golden Retrievers, Bull Terriers (yes they are), Shih-Tzu, Alaskan Malamute, two Huskies, a Chow-Chow are what came to my sight this morning. It was like a dog show.
After walking a kilometer, I began to slow down. I was tired, my legs were numb, and weather was heating as the sun began to rise up even higher. At almost the end of the road is where things started to become crowded, so we turned back and walked our way down the other side of the road, back to our parking lot. This time though, I was the most tiresome out of all 5 people. I got so red-faced and sweaty (Mom said that it was a 'toxic' sweat that I expelled). As we got back to our parking lot my sis broke her silence and told Mom that a random village guy had just teased us by repeating what we were saying.
So I did, this morning. I hereby write down my thoughts about running in the event.
All three of us woke up late at 5 AM and we're supposed to get up at 4. Knowing we're an hour late we forgot the shower and decided to brush our teeth. I picked up the most casual thing I can find in my closet and set off immediately. Mom, while driving, divulged the itinerary that we'll be going through prior to the run. We're going to park our car at the nearest plaza, grab some morning coffee and hashbrowns at McDonald's and then set out for a run. We initially had no one coming with us on this run but my uncle & aunt decided to join us midway. Man, and they ran so fast. I didn't even run.
Because us Indonesians are relatively laid-back, I found most of the people on the road were walking not running. There are like 40-45% of them who ran but the rest were just treating the Car Free Day as if they were just having a picnic. We walked fast, not running and I enjoyed my walk. Things were about to change as I finished my first kilometer. The street that we were running on stretches about 18 km and was divided by ring roads in the middle. My first minutes there were awesome, right until we hit that ring road point. I began to feel fatigue. I got sweat running down my head, burning leg muscles and the same burning sensation on my feet. Which was not a thing that I really bothered at the time because I was pumped up for an exercise. There were Ondel-Ondel (Jakarta giant puppets with a loud procession) among the joggers, blind married couples trying to earn money out of sympathy by singing, and some random Violinists who sounded like they are constantly pressing a wrong key (some were good though) but bowed like a virtuoso to cheer up the joggers. However, as I dealt with the pain and the burns, I got carried away by the views of tall buildings and some unique 'cheer-up' attractions. There were people walking their dogs on leashes. Golden Retrievers, Bull Terriers (yes they are), Shih-Tzu, Alaskan Malamute, two Huskies, a Chow-Chow are what came to my sight this morning. It was like a dog show. 
We went home and got some nice bowl of noodle afterwards.
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