Whether you are looking to improve your 5km or 10km, the marathon distance or the ultra distance, running on the road or in the trails, Bukit Kiara is the perfect training ground for you. Bukit Kiara has so many different terrains – flat and hills, road and trails, great for so many different types of training.
#1 Easy Run
Running around the Kiara lake gives you 1.1km. On your recovery days, loop the lake for a short 30 – 45 minutes at an easy pace. Remember, recovery runs are a very important but easily forgotten component of training. A true recovery run should not be difficult – this is to facilitate recovery preceding a hard training. Often we runners are obsessed with training volume – mileage. The recovery runs allows us to strike a balance between training volume and training stress – preventing us from overtraining or even injury.
#2 Speed Intervals
Try this – a 6 x 1.1km with a 3 minutes rest in between each set. This would mean running 1 loop around the lake, 6 times. The saying goes – if you want to run fast, you’ve got to run fast. Speed intervals help improve your speed, your running economy and strengthens your cardiovascular system. So you want to get faster? – it’s time to incorporate speed intervals into your training.
#3 Hill Repeats
From the 1st guardhouse all the way to the top of Kiara hill is an 800m steep climb. Doing 5 sets of hill repeats would be enough to kill you. If you’re looking to do a longer hill repeat, run from the post box all the way up to the top of the hill which will give you a 1.3km uphill climb. Hill repeats are an excellent way to built strength and improve running economy. It also gets you heart pumping.
#4 The Hilly Run
Start at the postbox and run pass the first guardhouse. Continue running your way up to the 2nd guardhouse. Go straight across to do the anti-clockwise loop of Kiara Hill. This is a straightforward hilly loop that will bring you back to the 2nd guardhouse. Upon coming back to the 2nd guardhouse, run back down to the postbox and repeat the loop. Do 3 loops to give you a hilly 15km mid-long run.
#5 Elevation Training
Looking to do some elevation training – hit the trails. Here’s a suggested loop to do. Start from Kiara Park and run up Upper Carnival. Go onto Lung Buster and run along Shriner’s Convention. Then run up twin peaks. It’s a 2km uphill climb all the way up to twin peaks. Run down TNT and then dirty deeds. Run across to boulder and run down to wasteland. Here you hit and uphill gravel all the way back up to the boulder area. Turn left into Snake and Ladders. Take the first right after the bridge and go up Sodomy Up all the way back up to Twin peaks. Then turn left to run along roller coaster all the way back down to lower carnival and back to the starting point. This 6km loop gives you a 380m elevation gain.
It is time to pay Kiara a visit. It’s really an all-in-one training ground.
Looking for other places to train? Check out our Malaysia Running Routes!
