Income Eco Run

Hello world!

It’s been a while since I did a running-related post. I’m still running, just a lot lesser than last year.

For some reason, my tenth/eleventh year of running is a lot more chill. A lot less formalised, a lot more flexible (flexible-ish, at least). Didn’t take part in any races this year… and had no intention to, until my lovely sister won me a free race entry (through Mok Ying Ren’s Instagram promo) to the NTUC Income Eco Run, previously known as Run 350.

(Waking up for races so early in Singapore remains a pain, and it’s even more painful given the formalised working day – so weekend sleep is precious to me)

Run 350 was my first (and so far only) time pacing in a race, and it was an awesome experience. I loved it – the friends made, the runs done. However the commitment was a little high, and it was a bit too troublesome for me to get down on weekends to East Coast Park to do the training runs (read: a lot less formalised above).

And thanks to “less formalised”, I had no training plan, no hypothetical race to train towards. When I got the free slot, it was one month to race day. And I didn’t really care about it… the only “half marathon-specific” training I did was a 16k run two weeks before race day (and boy did it feel long).

Given that it was a bonus run, I treated it without much care. But I cared enough to get to the starting line early enough to avoid getting stuck at the back (lessons learnt from Sundown last year). My motivation to finish the race was breakfast. And hopefully fast enough to not face a queue at the massage tent.

To be honest, it’s nice to have that “race” atmosphere, to see thousands of other runners there to do the same thing as you – moving one leg forward after the other, over and over again, from the start to the finish. It’s a nice contrast to the solo runs I do at night nowadays. Plus, having the hydration along the route is awesome too.

Ran past the 2 hr pacers pretty early along the route – with a sense of deja vu – and onwards to the next 20+ km of running. It was nice weather for Singapore standards – not humid – and it was not too crowded too. The support stations were plentiful, and the route was a little different (emphasis on little) from the usual F1 Pit Building-Stadium-Gardens by the Bay East-Marina Barrage-F1. For instance, there was a little detour through Kallang Riverside Park (interesting), and a detour down ECP Area A (not so interesting). Lots of u-turns also, including one around the Promontory… just to make up the distance?

Unfortunately, it seemed that my Garmin felt that the distance was a little short. I was consistently clocking in 4:32/km to 4:38/km splits (which, for a PB of 1:35:21, is too slow for a new personal best) – “comfortable enough” for me, but sufficient effort to require the hydration stations. In fact, the watch agreed with many of the distance markers… until we reached Gardens by the Bay South – and the route ‘shortened’.

Towards the final stretch, after running down Bayfront Avenue and the Helix bridge, as the finish line at F1 Pit Building loomed into view, I saw the electronic timer and I couldn’t believe my eyes. The gun time was indicating 1:34:xx (and I was a little delayed from the start ‘cos I wasn’t all the way in front).

I was like “What the…” – I couldn’t let the chance of clocking a PB go away in front of my own eyes. So I speeded down the final 150m or so (wouldn’t have made much of a difference) and enjoyed the feeling of an unexpected PB!

No idea what my final timing is yet (my Garmin says 1:34:41, but I stopped it a bit late), but to be honest my Garmin only recorded 20.8km. In some ways it felt like a “fake” PB because the Garmin didn’t say it was a real one. Pseudo-best or personal best? To me I’m leaning on “indifferent” – 1:34 and 1:35 is practically the same thing. But to go sub-1:35 (pseudo or not) is a very nice feeling, especially since I didn’t train for it.

How did it happen? I think it’s really the many years of running that has built up a running base for me. I’m not a talented runner at all (trust me, my Track days in NJC was proof enough), but I think the many runs over the many years have helped. It’s just a guess, but in some ways it makes sense? Muscle memory? I dunno.

But I do hope that down the road, I still remain a consistent runner – even if I don’t have things like races to ‘discipline’ me into a training regime.

Sundown Half Marathon 2016

Here’s the yin to the ST Run yang.

It has been around twelve hours since I finished my first Sundown half marathon, and the experience is still pretty vivid in my head. I thought it’ll be nice to have a longer write-up/reflection on this race because it has got to be one of my worst races in my years of recreational running.

In short, I had trained and was pretty confident of hitting a target timing of 1 hours 35 mins for 21.1km, or at an average pace of 4:30/km. My previous personal best was 1 hours 45 minutes. Today, I completed the distance in 1 hour 57 minutes.

Basically… today I barely hit an average pace that I was previously very comfortable with, so much so that I was able to pace others during the Run 350 half marathon.

What went wrong?

Probably everything… Hahaha.

In fact, I should rename this post as “Everything you should not do during a race”.

Getting to the Start line

I wasn’t late for the race, but I might as well have been. I made a total beginner’s mistake of queuing up for toilets too late before the flag-off (and worse, I picked a very slow moving queue). By the time I “joined” the snake for the flag-off, don’t-know-how-many waves of runners have started their half marathon. I crossed the start line a full 21 minutes after the initial flag off. It has got to be my latest start in a race.

And of course, waiting in line with a few hundred other “late” runners to enter the start pen meant I got dehydrated pretty quickly. It’s not the coolest weather around, especially with the heat from other runners.

The first 3km – Start point to Fort Road

Being at the back doesn’t bode well for my goal to hit 4:30/km. There were too many recreational joggers/walkers occupying every piece of space they can find on the roads. As usual, there was zero race etiquette in Singapore, but in this case I can only blame myself because I am clearly in the 7:xx/km zone. Second noob mistake: trying too hard to squeeze out of the crowd. There was too much sudden acceleration and deceleration involved, not to mention lots of lateral movement as I tried to find the path of least resistance. Needless to say, I was planting a lot of fatigue into my legs, as these are actions that I don’t do during my training.

The route designers at Hivelocity clearly wanted runners to have a memorable and so-called limitless experience, and they went pretty much no-limits on the route. Just after the first km (where I surprisingly managed to clock 4:48), we were running up the slip road from Republic Boulevard to ECP, on the Benjamin Sheares bridge… which is probably one of the highest in Singapore.

I’m not overly worried about hills. As the crowd thinned and as most started to walk up, I found the slight increase in space liberating and unfortunately, I sped up the steep incline. The long decline immediately after was a bit too shiok and I was going too fast. In my head, I was like “I can still keep to 4:30/km”, especially after clocking 4:09/km on my second km.

Unfortunately, the five-lane wide road soon came to an end and we started to filter out of the expressway through the Fort Road exit, which is single-lane (or at most double-lane). Because I’m so behind, there are many runners here too, and I had to resume the dreaded “find a nice path to speed ahead” motion. By the time the path got a bit better (which equated to less jiggling around), I was well into East Coast.

4-7km: To the East Coast U-turn

The first leg of the East Coast leg was me trying to find a rhythm and trying to keep to the pace. This was when I realised the fatigue from the earlier kms is catching up to me, as despite putting what I felt was a 4:30/km effort, I was only able to hit around 4:45/km (which is ironically slowly than my overall ST race pace, which felt comfortable to me). And I was also getting a bit dehydrated, as I had missed out on the first hydration point. When the 2nd point came along at 7km or so, I was probably too dehydrated (since my sweat can only remove the heat to a limited extent and I sweat way too much).

At the water point, I needed to stop, grab a cup and catch my breath. Pretty weird, huh? Well, at least that was what I thought at that point.

7-11km: Getting out of East Coast

After the u-turn, there was much more space. I finally felt a bit cooler, too. Time to focus on completing the race. At this point I thought I still had hope to at least beat my PB, because I was well under 5:00/km average pace. I didn’t check my watch during this stretch (‘run by feel’), but turns out my pace had dropped further, and hovering in the 4:55/km to 5:15/km region. That is not good because I thought I was putting in a pretty consistent effort.

Unfortunately at around 9km, I felt like I still wasn’t able to get into a consistent breathing pattern, which is probably crucial for me to sustain a more or less even pace. It was haphazard and weird. I also found my legs to feel heavier, especially when exiting from East Coast.

That’s when things really took a nosedive.

11-15km: Marina East Drive, and that long long stretch

Leaving the familiar environs of East Coast, the running pack around me thinned considerably. I had run past the 2:30 and 2:20 pacers by this point, which frankly doesn’t say much, except that I finally had the air I needed. At this stretch, however, I found my body to literally start dozing off. Wasn’t able to really wake those legs. Fatigued or tired, I wasn’t sure… but they just won’t move at the cadence that I was previously used to. And my, they just grew more and more tired.

Until I gave in and started to walk a bit.

Oh, that slippery slope of walking.

The last time I walked during a race was during my maiden full marathon at StandChart five years ago. And it wasn’t even until 25 to 27km then.

Needless to say I was already disappointed and upset with myself.

I soon adopted a walk-a-tiny-bit-and-jog strategy for this stretch, but as the watch beeped and I saw my splits freefall it was hard not to feel bad.

5:16, 5:30, 5:45, 5:38 (a slight rebound before…), 6:30.

The last part of this area included a very long straight stretch down a long straight road next to Bay East gardens. Right after the u-turn, I walked again. It was too tough – the tight turning almost made my right leg cramp. That’s when I know things were getting even worse.

15-20km: Marina East to Bay East, to Barrage and then to Bayfront Bridge, aka the “Wow this sucks pretty bad” phase

I was super dehydrated by the time I felt that initial twitch of a cramp. I don’t think I was even losing heat anymore – merely accumulating it. The only respite was pouring water on myself, and the water points were not close enough for my comfort. For prevent the cramps from really coming, I decided to play it safe and walk more. I knew if I cramped for real before 20km, it would be a very painful walk to the finish, and at this point I just wanted to finish, go home, and sleep.

After the water point at Bay East, we entered the so-called “Skyline Promenade”, which is the long stretch next to the water as we headed towards Marina Barrage. It’s a beautiful stretch, and it’s also familiar. Ever since joining RD, this has been a usual part of my Wednesday runs. Needing to walk and jog (it was becoming equal-parts-walk-and-jog by this point) was extremely mentally draining. It made me wonder how I did all those 4:xx/km runs along this stretch.

There were some positive points along this section. I remember as I neared Bay East, someone shouted my name and that was such a morale booster that I went on a pretty good jog (relative to my current physiological state) for a while. Until the twitches came, of course.

Soon, the Marina Barrage loop loomed. The pain of knowing that I’ve run 6 rounds of the loop at 4:20/km pretty easily just last week stung as I walked all the way up, and slowly slowly jogged my way down. At this point I was incredulous how I was breathing pretty hard even though I was just walking.

The return leg soon beckoned, and this part is even more familiar. The stretch along Gardens by the Bay, between the Barrage and MBS. Virtually every RD run on Wednesday will cover this stretch. I thought of the happy moments running with those buddies, and the moments I had covering this stretch alone – tired, but still strong. Here, I was basically making a mockery of the race theme of “Limitless” – clearly I found my limits for tonight.

Rui Feng ran past me nearing the end and was shocked that I was walking. So was Alvin. I tried to jog but it was difficult as I was already cramping by now. (Guess my conservative strategy didn’t work all the way)

20km-Finish: That Bayfront Bridge

There was a last water point at 20km, just underneath the Bayfront bridge. How funny that they have one last hydration point just one km from the Finish. I drank enough, and told myself that there was just one km left. And it’s the Bayfront bridge – I have done it numerous times in both directions. Just gotta do it one more time, and slowly.

Perhaps it’s the fact that I know that I’m really nearing the end and the cramps didn’t matter that allowed me to just slowly move up the slope and move back down without cramping. The end soon neared and I hobbled my way across the Finish. It’s so funny thinking about it now. The runners around me were picking up pace and ending gloriously, and I was just glad that I didn’t have to walk across the line.

And then I heard the final beeps from the timing mats, and I stopped my Garmin.

Finally.

Conclusion

After chatting with Declan for a bit I headed home, relieved that I made it, and even more relieved that I didn’t cramp up during the drive back. As I was clearing my stuff before I showered and slept I thought about the race and realised that it felt quite a bit like the second half of a full marathon than the first half. In that sense, I’m glad because I have plans to complete a full marathon at the end of the year, and it’s a good, timely lesson about racing and knowing how to pace yourself.

There are probably many reasons why this race failed. One reason is my late start. One reason is also due to the weird timing of the race, which only made sense to me during the run. I was basically running in the hours that I would normally be sound asleep by. And of course, another reason could be I just wasn’t prepared enough. In this case, it’s the mental preparation than the physical one.

After all, I did a 4:42/km rather easily last week, on a race just 3km (less, actually) shorter than a full marathon. It was the relaxed mentality, the “anything also can” mindset that allowed me to enjoy the run and feel the strength to say “good morning” to the volunteers and move on. (One good aspect about this race is the volunteers – they were cheering the runners on, some albeit quietly. Other races… any encouragement is pretty much a bonus) I was running that race with a smile on my face.

That is probably the biggest takeaway from this race.

Enjoying the run will probably do a lot more for performance than worrying about achieving even or negative splits.

So, in the end, PB unbroken (even though it was almost a sure-thing), cramped legs, and disappointment. But it’ll make all my other runs a lot sweeter.

My SCMS 2015 10km

Only six days into December and there’s so much happening already. Chelsea and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary yesterday, and my family went for the Downtown Line 2 open house yesterday too. (Still thinking about whether I should blog about these ‘cos they can take a while!)

Today, I went for the Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore 2015 with my youngest sister Huiling. I took part in the ‘puny’ distance of 10km (compared to the full marathon at least). We had no intention to participate in this race because it’s so pricey ($75 for 10km for non-early bird residents? No thank you), but adidas SG had a Instagram contest giving out pairs of SCMS 10k passes, and lo and behold, she won a pair. So she jio-ed me (since I jio-ed her to take part in the contest) and here we are.

In a way I’m relieved to have this chance to set my 2015 running calendar right. Besides the ‘fun run’ I had with Chelsea at the Bizad Run early this year, the only other race I took part in was the Nila Run, which turned out to be a blowout because it was less than 10km (So much for a new ‘personal best’). I was prepared for the 2XU Compression half-marathon before it was postponed, and I was injured during the postponed race. So, I looked forward to doing this 10k despite having just a two or three week lead time to “train” for it. At least I am greatly confident that the distance would be much closer to 10km.

However, due to exams and my volunteering duties for the Asean Para Games happening so close to the race, the last ‘chill’ run I had two days ago was not so chill as my legs ached and I was pretty much out of breath from the start (waking up at 5am and standing around the entire day didn’t really help the run I guess). So I tapered my expectations. Initially I wanted a timing around 43 minutes, and I felt that doing something sub-45 would be great already (4:30/km). After all, I did 4:20/km for the Nila Run and that was 9.5km, and I was prepared for that run.

Early this morning (not as early as the marathon or half marathon peeps), my parents dropped us off somewhere near Esplanade Bridge where we quickly deposited our baggage and off we went to the start line. It’s a far walk – we had to walk from Esplanade across the Jubilee Bridge, reaching the Merlion before going back towards the start line outside Esplanade. It was nice to see the sunrise coming behind Marina Bay Sands, but I had no phone with me to capture the moment. (Many others did)

Thankfully we were reasonably near the front, which allowed for a significantly more comfortable run.

After the hoo-hah and stuff to warm the crowd up (where we also saw the elite marathon runners sprinting to the end line), off we went after a slight delay. My first km was bad because of the crowds. There were people talking on the phone, selfies taken, walkers on the right, etc. etc. Race etiquette in Singapore… not there yet. The sun was coming up, it was getting hot and I wanted to get out of the heat from the human crowd.

Thankfully I cleared the majority of the crowd around 1km (which took me a somewhat disappointing 5 minutes 2 seconds), and was able to get back to what-I-hoped was a nice cruising pace for the rest of the run. After a while, I realised I was going at a pace faster than I could sustain, a pace I usually run at for my 6.2km runs with traffic stops.

Still I continued to trudge on, slowly overtaking people as the pack in front thinned to people running individually. It’s quite nice because you have all the space you need now. By the time I reached the first U-turn around 4.5km, it was nicely sparse and there was this guy in yellow singlet who was running a bit faster than I was. We kept up with each other for 2 more km before I realise I was running out of steam. It was disappointing because he encouraged me to go on and I think he wanted me to help him keep pace.

There’s only so much my legs had. Never train properly, just whack only. There were a few times I took water and also took the chance to catch my breath before going back into it. As 10km is really not that long, the Esplanade loomed into sight and soon the race was over as I raced down next to the Padang (I love this stretch the most, it’s so epic).

I was so intent on getting a 10.0km on my Garmin that I kept running after the finish line. When I realised I was going into the wrong place, I stopped the watch and it turned out I covered a distance of 9.99km on my watch. Hahahahah!

Stopping the watch late also meant that I didn’t know my actual time I took to finish 10km. My watch said 43:06, but I was pretty sure I went around 40 to 50 metres extra. How long would I have taken to finish the extra distance?

Turned out that my net time was 42:59 (4:18/km), just under 43 minutes. (SUB-43!) I was incredibly happy when I learnt that I scored a personal best today despite the hot, hot sun and the less-than-ideal conditioning. Plus, I had no formal training plan in place (ever since my NJC Track days) – zero interval training, zero fartleks… just running consistently. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter… depending on my mood. I guess in that regard, I did a lot better than expected. 🙂

Also with the run, I completed my 1,000th kilometre this year. As much as I like to think that I run quite a lot, I realise I never hit 1,000km in a calendar year before, so I set this goal for myself. I was initially doing well on this in the initial months of the year as I was training for the 2XU half marathon, before my injury in the second half of the year threatened to put this goal into irrelevance. Thankfully, I managed to finish this before my trip with my family to China in a few days time.

It feels like my running for 2015 has ended on a high note, and though my right leg is still aching from this morning’s run, it feels like the 1,001km this year has been worth the blood, mud and tons of sweat.

1,000km with Forerunner 220

10 months ago, I did my first run with a GPS-enabled watch I bought from Benjamin, my Air Force/Tembusu friend – the Garmin Forerunner 220. When I got it, I did a post about forming an emotional attachment to my Garmin Forerunner 405 watch, that clunky GPS watch that I was using then to track my runs.

I did 2,462km on that watch, after purchasing it in September 2011. Fast forward to today, and I have completed 1,000km worth of runs on the Forerunner 220. More runs in less time. And I thought I was a pretty serious runner when I purchased the Garmin watch in 2011 – why else would I spend a few hundred dollars on a watch that could tell me the distance?

Of course, I could have used my phone to track my distance but smartphones are clunky and not exactly waterproof. Given the amount I perspire after every run, I think any gadget would have suffered some damage sooner or later. Unfortunately that was what happened to my Forerunner 220 a few weeks ago, when the Bluetooth chip in the watch started to act funny and refused to sync with my phone. Just when the warranty was expiring. Such is life.

But other than that little glitch, I must say I really like the Forerunner 220. It’s light (way lighter than the Forerunner 405 – 40g vs 60g) and it looks a lot more like a watch than the 405. I like to wear the 220 as my daily watch because it looks quite nice in my opinion. Sporty enough with a big screen, but not too clunky to stick out (clunkiness was the story of my 405).

But really, I don’t use all the features of the Forerunner 220. A simpler GPS watch may do me fine. I tried using the heart rate tracking with the heart rate monitor, but I realise my perspiration (see above) almost always causes the monitor to slip off around 20 minutes into the run, which makes the tracking inaccurate and the run extremely uncomfortable. I don’t use the interval feature, nor do I use the custom workout feature. Those track ‘training’ days are over for me.

But the things I do use, I do love. I love the vibrating alert at every km. I love the fact that I can change the colour of the watch face (yes I know, very rudimentary compared to other smartwatches like Apple Watch but it’s still something 95% of digital watches can’t do). And I also love how quickly it catches the satellite signals, and lets me know I can start on yet another run. Simple to start, simple to stop. And at the end of it all, I get the stats. It’s great.

And it’s motivating. I wanted to run 1,000km in 2015, and so far I have covered 683km. The fact that I covered 1,000km in the 10 months before means that I have achieved my goal to cover 1,000km in a year (something which, surprisingly, I have not achieved in my past years of running regularly). But I have been doing longer runs and faster runs as time passes, which may or may not be due to the watch being there as a companion to spur me on. It very well might be.

Hopefully I can run another 1,000km with this watch before it gives up on me. Then I guess it’ll be time to go looking for another digital running companion. But the core of it all – focusing on the run – remains as crucial as ever.

Nila Run

The SEA Games have finally started! It has been a while since Singapore has held a multi-disciplinary sports event, and I still remember how exciting the Youth Olympic Games were (at least for me) back in 2010. Five years later, Singapore is hosting the SEA Games, but the way things are done remind me of a larger, grander event for far more than the 11 countries taking part.

Chels and I went for the SEA Games opening ceremony two days ago, on Friday. Wanted to write about it but I shall save it for another post 🙂

Today, I took part in my first 10k race since my Nike We Run SG race in 2011. I still remember that route was incredibly boring – multiple times up and down Nicoll Highway. But it made for easy running and I remember doing a crazily impressive time then – 45:57. Those days I hardly went below 4:40/km for my runs so the timing was unexpected. I think I ended up being placed #44 which was even more surprising.

For some reason I didn’t do 10kms until today.

I didn’t even know of the Nila Run until I received an email advertisement from ActiveSG. It was only then that I realise that it’s quite cool to run a commemorative run for the SEA Games, which meant ‘free’ (or at least affordable) SEA Games memorabilia.

Turned out my sister also signed up for the race – and it’s her first 10km race too. So we both made our way to the race venue, which was at the Sports Hub. There was barely any parking spaces so we parked near Mountbatten MRT. The walk from Mountbatten to the start line was crazily long – the longest I’ve walked to a race start yet. I think it was an 2-3km long walk. (Free warmup!)

I was quite looking forward to this run because I guessed that the number of people taking part in this race will be nowhere near the enormous numbers seen at the StanChart Marathon Singapore and the Army Half Marathon. This meant a less congested route and hopefully better timing. I was right – there were quite a crowd but nowhere near the mega races.

The race start was delayed – probably due to the priority given to the men’s marathon (the marathon route apparently overlapped with the Nila Run one which was a nice touch) – and the crowd was looking for the start line. It was very, very low profile – no Start arch (and it soon turned out that there is no Finish arch too).

Soon we were on our way after Nila (the mascot) flagged us off (hahaha!). The first km was the one where I had to do the most zig-zagging because of the large number of recreational walkers. Some were even stopping on the right side of the route chatting on the phone (so irritating!). Thankfully the crowd cleared up at the 1km mark. This was way better than the AHM last year when I finally broke free from the large crowd at the 10km (!) mark.

It was a nice run. Unconventional route, in the sense that we didn’t go into the CBD at all. We got a glimpse of the Gardens by the Bay… and that’s it. We ran on the ECP Area A park connector that I cycled on last week with my family, before heading back to Kallang. Running on the Tanjong Rhu park connector, seeing the majestic National Stadium with the Kallang reservoir reflecting the bright lights, was the highlight of the route for me.

Route for today’s race

As I ran, I was quite surprised that I was able to (slowly) overtake people even as the crowd thinned considerably ahead of me. I was expecting to feel tired because normally traffic stops on my runs will give me time to catch a breather (at the pace I was going). I had seen the route map and I visualised where I was and how long more there was. What didn’t help was the km markers – which were quite hard to see – and out of sync with my Garmin watch.

When I finished the race, my watch registered 9.56km, 440m off from 10km. Turned out that many others had similar distances recorded on their devices, which meant that the route was shorter than 10km. Which was a real pity because I did quite a good timing – 41 mins 21 seconds.

How I fared – according to my Garmin

Taking the watch as accurate, my pace was 4:20/km which is great – I would have finished in a little over 43 minutes. Not too shabby at all! It’s such a strange feeling to see the almost non-existent crowd after crossing the finish line.

Then it poured. Really heavily. The rain was quite unforgiving. The finishing area was the car park outside Kallang Leisure Park, which made sense if the weather was good. Turned out it wasn’t so many runners took shelter in the mall itself, but everyone was drenched for sure.

Even though the distance is shorter than ideal I’m glad that I did this run. Even though it’s not the best organised race (people were complaining online about the lack of 100 Plus drinks at the drink stations…) I think it’s not too shabby generally. Quite worth the price and the medal is cute. I guess I gotta look for another 10km run to record down a real best effort…

Tough Runs

There is something about difficult runs that compel one to share his/her experiences. The fatigue, the strain, or maybe the feeling of weakness and inability. Good runs are the ones that bring a smile to your face, but really, there’s nothing too much to ‘feel’ about – it’s just all good. Legs feel light, lungs feel fresh, and it may feel like you can keep on going. Or in other cases, you may be surprised at the split timings you are getting every kilometer (‘Sure got so fast meh?’)

Yesterday, I had a not-so-good run.

After the excitement of completing a sub-4:00/km run last Sunday, I did my usual Wednesday run yesterday at home, thanks to Deepavali. I decided to venture onto a route that I only ran once last year, one that was hilly and unforgiving… the Rifle Range Road route.

Looking back at that post now, it’s kinda funny how the run felt so much easier then. Of course, comparing the run data paints a different picture. I started the route yesterday after a 1.5km detour, for instance. I was also running at a faster average pace overall yesterday than one year ago (4:20/km vs 4:44/km).

But I somehow forgot how difficult the run is.

Maybe my legs are no longer used to running on hilly terrain. (My legs were definitely more suited for hills when I was in North Carolina one year ago due to the hilly UNC campus at Chapel Hill) Maybe my stamina is only there for shorter distances (like 5km). Maybe it’s the haze.

Ultimately I wished I enjoyed the run more. It’s still a beautiful route, with many trees around. The view from the flyover is pretty cool too – you can see quite a bit of the expressway underneath. Still, it was difficult. I can imagine how difficult it is for new runners to start off – the feeling of breathlessness, the feeling of jelly legs, the feeling that walking can just end the agony. And disappointingly enough, I ended my run prematurely yesterday, on the return leg at the Rifle Range flyover. My legs were almost cramping at that point. I really wasn’t conditioned enough.

I have no intention to be a ‘good’ runner, but I feel that I should put in a good effort in the things I do, and running faster is a consequence of that effort put in (despite no formal training regime). And it’s clear that I have not been putting effort into running hilly roads.

No effort, no gain.

The key is of course knowing how to bounce back from the dreadful experiences. I have had quite a few bad runs since I started running in earnest 7 (!) years ago. But somehow, there will be a good run that comes about that reverses everything. Of course, I have to trust the good run will come back.

Just like how it always has.

The run that ended abruptly yesterday

Emotional Attachment

Is it weird to form an emotional bond with a gadget?

I think in this age of fast-changing technology and gadgetry, it is probably quite hard to do so. Some change their smartphones every few months, chasing the latest and greatest in technology. Gadgets nowadays tend to stop working quite quickly too, sometimes just a few months after their one-year warranty mark. And so they get replaced, and replaced, and replaced again.

A lot of people like to claim an emotional attachment to their Macs. For me, I like my MacBook Pro a lot, for sure, but there isn’t anything special besides it being a superb, superb computer for me to do my work. (Plus the display is simply killer)

Recently, I feel that I probably have an emotional attachment with my Garmin Forerunner 405, a GPS watch that I use on my runs. 

In fact, I don’t recall not running with it ever since I ORD-ed in February 2012 (except for the rare occasion when it just did not have enough battery). My relationship with this running thing started in 2007, but it is probably with the Forerunner (that I got off Amazon in September 2011 with an awesome price of USD186) that my running became a little more “serious”. 

So, 2,462km and nearly 197 hours of running later (367 runs), I decided that it’s time to switch to a better watch. And I felt it – the emotional attachment I (think I) have with this watch.

My Forerunner 405 was still working quite great. In fact, nothing is really wrong with it except its poor battery life. It’s just that Benjamin has this funky new Forerunner 220 GPS watch, and he decided that he could sell it to me at a discount. And the price was favourable and the deal was done. 

On Friday after I got my new watch, I was tempted to start running with this beautiful black-and-red watch that looks more like a watch than my old Forerunner ever was (friends would know that big fat black thing I wear around my wrist). But I decided to run one last (good) one with the fat watch. 

It was quite a good run. Initially when my pace was comfortable and everything was still nice, I thought about how I have worn this watch around the world (I literally did – across the globe during my exchange). How it was my companion during my runs (which are mostly solo runs), giving me the beep it always did at every 1km split. It was with me during my worst run ever – the full marathon I attempted in 2011 with no training, as well as during my best runs (like my best 2.4km run during IPPT). It accompanied me on a journey to becoming a better runner (I’m a ‘light’ runner – I don’t carry other gear with me [like smartphones]). Long runs (like the three half marathons I did so far), or short runs… it was there (sometimes with the threatening “Low Battery” message mid-run).

Today, I did my first run with my new Forerunner 220. It was a great run, with a best-ever average pace for a run more than 5km in distance. It’s a snazzy watch too – colour screen, vibrating alerts, and an incredibly quick GPS lock-on. Battery life is awesome, and there’s no finicky interface to deal with. 

The GPS connection was secured even before I was ready to run. I smiled, thinking that I used to have to (sometimes) wait incredibly long periods (up to 5 minutes) for the GPS to lock-on on my old watch. I remember apologising to my friends like Mingwei and Subeer for the ‘slow’ GPS. Technology has indeed moved on, after so long.

That ends an active running relationship with my good old black fat watch. It was 35 months (to the date – my first run was on 7 October 2011) long (quite long for gadgetry first introduced in 2008) and it was great. I hope my new running gadget can last me for a while to come (:

Old and new… Forerunner 405 stained with super glue to keep it all together on the left, and my new Forerunner 220 on the right

Online Shopping

One thing that is amazing here is that I get to buy things online, especially from Amazon.com – the world’s biggest retailer (I think). It’s not my first experience with Amazon, of course… My Garmin Forerunner 405 was purchased from Amazon way back in October 2011. (Oh wow, it’s almost 2 years!)

Getting my Garmin was purely a “want” thing – I had no need for a GPS watch – and given that GPS watches are quite pricey, I could very well live with my Nike+iPod way of tracking my runs (Nike+iPod since 2007, baby!). After my first half-marathon (Army Half Marathon, in 2011), I realise that I have had enough with an armband with an iPod just to track my runs. And one that’s not that accurate too.

The Garmin would have been out of my range if not for its big price drop (it is a discontinued model, after all). I used vPost for the first shipping… and altogether it cost me S$250 or so. It is, in my view, one of my best buys (albeit a tad pricey). Running with the GPS is more motivating than I had thought, and seeing the kilometers add up… is really something.

Now that I’m in the US, free shipping abound. Furthermore, with an UNC email address, I signed myself up for Amazon Student, which gives me free 2-day shipping for the first six months (just right). Enticing, right? But I’ve only used Amazon so far for textbooks… things that I “need” and are not immediately enjoyable.

Until I chanced upon the Klipsch Image x10 in-ear earphones online.

I have an existing Klipsch set… the quite-common, very value-for-money Image s4i – since March 2011. I am quite happy with it, but recently the cabling has gotten dirty and has started to tear all over. I don’t foresee it lasting very long – though it still works quite well.

The Klipsch x10, therefore, was a purely “want” thing. It used to cost US$350. It was retailing for US$140.

It was so tempting. I researched all about it. I converted the price. Thought about its value (or perceived value, at least). Read past reviews. Turned out that during last year’s Black Friday, they retailed for US$80 (or something like that). Wondered if I should wait. Will it still be around for Black Friday this year, considering its discontinued state since 2011 (or so)? (My Garmin 405 has not reached lower price levels today compared to when I bought it then… prices don’t always keep going down)

Difficult, difficult. It was tempting – a step up from my s4i, and I want to see how one of the “best” IEMs on the market sound like.

In the end, I bought ’em. Ordered on Thursday, and received them today.

I was pretty much blown away. It initially sounded marginally better, but only with side-by-side comparison with the s4i, did the x10 show its prowess. New details in the music. The clarity. The stronger bass.

It’s also quite scary how my standard for listening to music will slowly increase…

Now to see if buyer’s remorse kicks in. (Oh, America, you consumerist society!)

Backlog

Ah, today I return to the Singapore Discovery Centre for work. It feels eerily familiar – the travel from Choa Chu Kang to Joo Koon, and the ten minute walk from the station to the workplace. It feels as though I have been doing that for a long long time, even though I’d only started work two weeks ago. It’s not the first time though – when I was working at MCYS and IRAS, the walk from the bus stop/MRT station feels familiar even only just a few weeks of work.

Is this a sign of how fast we “adapt” to a new standardised routine? Or maybe it’s just me.

Regardless, I’m kinda happy for the morning half at work, simply because of the backlog of work that awaited me. The work that accumulated from the sales from Friday all the way to Tuesday meant quite a bit of “routine” work for me to do. It’s quite interesting. I used to dread work piling up when I was at MCYS. In fact I still think I do. But I also dread having no work to do. It’s one thing being slack, but another thing being restless. And I lean more towards feeling restless.

But time still passes by, as it always has. It soon turned 6pm and I headed down to Somerset with Chelsea to meet Fong Wa and my sister. We had dinner and we chatted for a bit, catching up on things – mostly on student exchange matters. Since the two of them have been out for quite some time, we parted ways after dinner (which still feels a bit awkward). Chelsea and I spent the rest of the evening walking around 313@Somerset and doing a bit of (gasp!) window shopping. Then we had this nice dessert at this Hong Kong dessert shop. Mango desserts are just SO nice.

Mango and durian mochi – yum!

And I am really feeling the strain of the fatigue that is accumulating – with no easy way to clear. Caffeine is only just a stopgap measure.

On more materialistic sad news, my Forerunner watch strap broke. It’s not really the strap, it’s the “connecting” part on the watch unit that broke this morning. I have no idea how I did it, but it just snapped. Buying a new strap won’t help matters as the strap is not broken. What a bad way to start the day, right? It feels funny going around today watchless.

Hopefully super glue will help. Or when all else fails, duct tape.

Rifle Range

The beauty of running lies in the simple fact that you can go anywhere your legs can take you to. Just almost anywhere (I do think it’s impossible to run up Mount Everest, for example). With that in mind, it’s amazing how you can explore new places while running. What better way to find hidden gems and secret routes than to use your legs?

Well, you can drive, but driving simply brings you to these places that you have not seen before. Using your legs, on the other hand, is a way to explore new places. Different means of achieving the same end result.

Anyway, I ran a new route this evening. It’s pretty boring and tame – the route involves running on Rifle Range Road, probably one of the longest undeveloped stretches of road I can think of that’s not in the Lim Chu Kang area (and maybe Ponggol Seventeenth Avenue). The fact that it lies in the Bukit Timah makes it exciting too!

So off I went with my trusty Garmin (which is running out of battery again). I wore my dad’s Asics Nimbus 12 for today’s run because I thought it would be a long run which may be too much for my old DS Trainers. That’s all. It’s almost completely pure running. No phone, no wallet… (no use for ez-link card too, because there are no bus stops along the road anyway). Just my (dad’s) shoes, watch and me.

Started off from the railway corridor near Hindhede, and I went off. Didn’t really do much recce beforehand but I knew (from Google Street View) that there will be a flyover over the Bukit Timah Expressway along the way. So I thought I would probably do my U-turn there… didn’t want to run too far.

Turns out the road is a lot shorter than I thought. It was also a lot tougher than I thought. It is a sore reminder of my weakness – terrain. Almost every stretch of this road is either inclining or declining and my conditioned-for-flat-ground legs were fatigued quickly.

Still, it’s an interesting route to run on. Running on the meandering road is quite surreal. I daresay that this is one of the only roads in Singapore where there are virtually no cars, and no people. The only people I saw were fellow runners (some looking tired like me, some looking fresh for some reason). Rainforest covers your left and right. It’s really beautiful.

After the flyover (which I hit in around 2.5 kilometers), I decided to keep running to the end of the road. It’s an interesting road… home to some military, communications and public utilities facilities. And monkeys. When I was nearing the end of the road, it was monkey territory. Luckily they were quite “tame”.

When I reached the end of the road, I was at the entrance to MacRitchie Reservoir. And I realised that I was actually here before. During a navigation exercise during my Air Force Service Term in OCS, our little group got lost in the MacRitchie forest and we ended up walking parallel to the road (which turned out to be Rifle Range Road) so that we can get to our water point. It was such a cool coincidence.

Of course, the sucky part is to do a U-Turn and head back, facing the same hills I have conquered previously. Thankfully the return leg was more forgiving on my legs.

Ended the 7.2km run completely soaked in sweat. Completely relieved that I made it without any cramps, and completely glad I did this in the first place. It was not easy, but it was easily the best thing I’ve done today.

My Garmin GPS track