Bali marathon: running the route graced with chickens and cheering

Run for life: A runner being cheered on by schoolchildren during the BII Maybank Bali Marathon 2014.

Our intrepid journalist tackles a rustic running route graced with chickens, ducks and hearty cheering.

It was a dark and rather chilly morning on Sept 14 when I reached the starting point of the marathon at 4am (after a 2:30am wake up call) from my hotel in Nusa Dua, Bali, just before the local authorities started to close the roads. I was standing in a neon yellow sea of some 4,400 participants, the highest number recorded since the inception of the BII Maybank Bali Marathon in 2012.