Regular Exercise Active Lifestyle

Regular Exercise Active Lifestyle aka REAL is my annual ‘pilgrimage’ (if you call it that) to attend the running event. Ever since I started running 2 years ago this was my first run I signed up for and I have been attending it ever since. This is the third year of my participation. I decided that this year I would do the 15km run instead of the 10km run which I have been doing for the past 2 years.

As usually I bought the bus ticket to get me there to Changi Exhibition centre. This race has pickup points around the island which was one of the nice things. But I had to wake up like 4am and meet the bus at 5.15am we were there by 6am. The 10K starts at 7am and the 15K starts at 7.30am. I have to say the race started promptly at 7am the guest of honor was Associate Professor Ho Peng Kee. He went down to talk to the elite runners for the 10K event and soon they were off. It took almost 8 minutes to clear everyone. Then there were some tokens of appreciation given out and soon it was time for the 15K event. The minister actually made his way down the line and I got to shake his hand. Well that was a first for me and a nice gesture on his part.

We were off at around 7.30am. The route took us through some grasslands, then onto the long stretch of link road (with no shade), the route split after that with the 10K runners heading to the trail while the 15K runners took another route to cover some road running. The route eventually headed back to the trail and you could see the tail end of the 15K runners. There were a few ‘large’ runners at the end and I was really impressed by them as they were doing the 15K and even if they walked it was a 15km walk which is 15km more than any couch potatoe was doing. The route then joined up with the 10K runners at the trail and then it was the 400m stretch of beach, one of the hottest parts before running back to the finishing point on the link road (the one with no shelter or shade)

It was an enjoyable run for me and a good warm up for the half marathon that I hope to attempt in december.