The first North East Run was held in Pasir Ris on 14th Mar 2010. It was also my first running event of the year. I had signed up for the 16km run which would wind its way around the Pasir Ris / Tampines area of Singapore. I paid $30.40 for the event since I was a PAssion card member. Which basically entitled me to a Saucony running vest, it was red in colour and a goodie bag, more on that later. Here is the vest with my running bib number, taken with the missus’ handphone.
I was actually a little sick before the run as I was down with a cold virus, but managed to recover somewhat to be able to run on that day. Since I had stopped running a while to recover from my cold I figured I would just take it easy with this run (it being the first for the year as well … had planned on 6 events this year) So I was all prepared for the run, did my usual pre-race day checks but this time I had an extra item with me. The missus as usual was the sceptic about all my runs. She ‘see me no up one’ and would joke if I could actually complete the run. 'Bring your handphone’ she would say, ‘don’t forget your bus pass to get back to the finishing line’ she would call after me, ‘remember to get ambulance sent you to Tan Tock Seng as it is the nearest to the house’ she would comment. Anyway with the longer runs and all that I decided to make myself an ID Tag. One of those types where you can put your name and emergency contact details on. I figured its useful and also you can use it in various sporting events as well. It looked cool as well. After consultation with the missus (since she is my fashion guru) I got the Orange coloured band, since the idea was to make it prominent.
So I set my alarm for 4am, woke up at that time, decided to just get another 5 minutes shut eye and low and behold it was 5am !!!! I was late. A mad rush to get up and change into the attire, had a quick drink and slice of bread, got into my running kit, had my anti-chaff cream on and it was off to Pasir Ris Park for the start of the run.
It started on time at 6.45am, it was an interesting run I would have to say with a few surprises. First surprise was that there were overhead bridges to clear, I saw that on the route map and thought that it would be interesting but as we had to clear 4 overhead bridges, it soon became clear that it felt like I was doing a vertical marathon as well. Second surprise was that they did not close some roads and we had to wait at the traffic lights for the police to stop traffic at intervals for us to cross that really was not very good as it disrupted the rhythm of the run. Third surprise was besides the overhead bridges, we had to cross over a couple of ‘flat’ bridges, those with no stairs just to get over the canal. One of these was actually a suspension bridge, which started bouncing and I think I was thrown like 50 metres into the air at one point. it was really funny running over that bridge, luckily the return route did not cross it, Did not think it was really safe running across it. if that bridge broke I think it would be bigger news than Jack Neo.
The first 5 km or so was really tough I was not really into it until about the 8 km mark when I felt comfortable and I believed I managed to get back in under 2 hours. I was really hungry by then and I wolfed down 5 banana's which I probably should not have :) Collected my goodie bag which had an Alive Mixed Nut Bar, Enervon tablets and Block Up! sun block cream plus some coupons and the Medal for completing the run and made my way back. I think I injured my groin area now with all that stair climbing.
No comments:
Post a Comment