KUALA LUMPUR - Heads turned yesterday when "Spiderman" turned up at the Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2009. He even ran the 10km race.

"Spidey" was actually 69-year-old Maswar Sahlan, who walked around Dataran Merdeka after the race and obliged requests for photographs.

"Kids love me. My 4-year-old grandson gave me the idea to wear the costume."

The factory machine operator retiree, from Singapore, said the costume was bought by his daughter-in-law in Japan four years ago.

Since then, Maswar has been wearing the outfit in every race he took part in.

"I started to join competitions in 1985 in Kuala Lumpur. From there I joined other international events in Thailand and Indonesia, and of course, in Singapore.

"But the last four years were fun because I get to become Spiderman," he joked.

The grandfather of three said he used to be very fit but as age catches up, he only enters competitions for fun.

"I used to climb the stairs at Menara KL every now and then. But now, even running 10km can be tiring. I took two hours to finish," he said.

For Henry Shin and his blind friend Kim Mok from Hong Kong, the race strengthened their seven-month friendship.

"We feel glad to be here and to complete the race as the weather is beautiful.

"Kim is a high-spirited person and I am sure we will do this again next time," he said.

Shin guided his friend throughout the 42km mara-thon which began at 5am.

Participants and those who turned up to watch the race were entertained by Ning Baizura.

--NST