Mizuno Ekiden 2017

This has been a barren year for me in terms of race participation. Other than the NTUC Income Eco Run, which I entered for free thanks to my sister’s participation in social media contests, I only have two races this year that I paid to enter, and both of them are team-based/relay style. (Okay there is also the SCSM Ekiden at the end of the year but that one is really for fun as it’s like a few days before my wedding)

Because of the lack of races, yesterday’s evening was freed, in the sense that I’m not running Army Half Marathon early this morning. When Fadzly asked if I was interested to run the Mizuno Ekiden with Garry and Ben, I was quite agreeable – as long as it was a chill run. The fact that the Mizuno Ekiden shirts were awesome to look at and wear is a bonus.

(Knowing them, ‘chill’ run is not really chill, to be honest… At least we signed up for the half marathon category, which means 4 of us cover 21.1km in total, or 5.27km each)

The only downside about the Ekiden last year was the timing. While it’s great that there’s no need to wake up at 3am on a Sunday morning, the fact that the race kicks off at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon means that it’s *hot*. Thankfully, there was light drizzle this year before flag off which cooled things down significantly. Frankly the weather was pretty good.

Then it was the wait. As I was the last runner (something which I would have definitely not volunteered for) the wait for my turn was dragged out. I was the second runner last year which meant I didn’t have to wait too long, so in that sense I was pampered, hahaha.

The good thing was that we were able to track our team’s results and frankly it was much better than I’d expected. Our first runner Garry was running in at 5th position which was ?!?!? given the non-seriousness of it all.  Of course, whether it could be sustained was another matter as Garry handed over to Fadz in 7th position (if I remember correctly).

Either way, my turn soon reached and after chatting with Garry and Fadz who finished their runs, I had an idea of where the u-turns were and where the water points were (not as though I would drink from them, but always good to know). They just kept saying how crowded the route was, and boy was it true.

When I got the sash from Ben, off I went. I was careful not to overburn the first km or so, but it was difficult because of the wait since the start of the race. Thankfully I found a rhythm by the time I’ve reached MBS. The crowds were there but the good thing is that the marshals tried to keep an open path for ekiden participants.

The straining part came after the u-turn point, around 2.4km. Not shocking because I didn’t train for this! I’ve been so nua with my runs that I can’t really cope with a sudden increase in intensity. (But this also shows I can still do my IPPT, hahaha)

Still, the fact that the route was very familiar (it’s the weekly RD route after all) helps. The Bayfront flyover sucks but at least I know how sucky it was. Likewise with the crowds behind the floating platform (absolute madness) and at the Jubilee Bridge/Merlion area (absolutely mad). The marshals tried but there’s only so much they can do on a Saturday afternoon with no rain and little sun — tourists just want to sightsee!

By the time I’ve passed the Merlion I was exhausted already. It’s funny because it’s such a short race compared to 10k or 21km, much less 42km. But I think it’s the intensity and the unfamiliarity of running such a distance. It was gratifying to turn into the Finish line stretch with everyone in front of me turning into the transition area.

And the line, and the crossing of the line! It was done. I was glad. Then a volunteer came over and looped a potential finisher tag over my neck. I was so tired that it didn’t sink in until when I was done collecting the drinks and finisher medals that I realised that “omg potential winner?!?!”

Of course potential winner only meant just that – there’s a good chance that you’re not because of how they classify results and how they need time to confirm the results. But for many hobbyist runners, getting the potential winner tag is more than enough. Of course, the caveat for us is that AHM was just a few hours away so serious runners would have avoided running the Ekiden. But it was still a nice bonus!

My teammates were nowhere to be found when I finished, but when they did appear they were pretty excited (ok, very excited) with the potential finisher tag. Fadz then did a check on his phone and realised we were third in the open category. That was such a happy moment!

Ultimately we didn’t win anything because of some classification problems on the organiser’s side (urghh). We were bumped down to fifth and ninth team overall, which is pretty amazing given the number of strong teams in the corporate category and open category (like F1 Runners and Shufflers). And we were a group that really runs just for fun!

Chelsea came over after the race was over for our usual Saturdate but thanks to the potential winner tag our date was delayed until the results were confirmed. While she was slightly disappointed she didn’t get to see me at the finish I was more than happy that she was there to share in the joy of completing a race. 🙂

 

 

 

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.

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…

Recess Week

The past week has been termed the recess week… basically a week without any lessons. Sounds good right? It sounds so great on paper… but at least in Singapore, it’s just plain terrible. (My own experience, at least)

When I was in the US, fall break (roughly the same thing) meant fall break – a real break from classes and all. No assignments, no upcoming tests, no project meetings or deadlines due. We went to Atlanta, Georgia then. This time round? My recess week destination is 26 College Avenue East, also known as Tembusu College. Oh yeah, with a few side trips to 8 College Avenue East (College of Alice & Peter Tan), 2 College Avenue West (Edu Resource Centre), and a little trip to Mochtar Riady Building (NUS Biz!).

The pressure of overloading is best felt during this period. Multiple tests and conflicting demands make life difficult. Econs and Business modules don’t mix well in this regard. Midterms for Econs? No midterms for Biz modules. Projects for Biz modules? No projects for Econs modules. There you have it… a little conflict, and I have to balance both.

I did try, I guess. All the while trying to meet my group work obligations (for ACC3601, ACC3603 and my most hated module to date, MNO2007 – Leadership and Ethics). Every day there would be a meeting, and every day I would try to do a mix of Econs and accountancy related work. Not that easy, it turns out. 

End of the day? Recess week is the most tiring week I have had yet so far in NUS this semester. Oh, the irony!

Better parts of the week? Hanging out with Chelsea and also joining Sherman’s BBQ party (that is really a great stress breaker… thanks Shermy)

Decided to mix it up a little bit today. Dropped my brother and sister at Marina Barrage early this morning because there was this NJC Road Run. When I was in NJ, the road run was in the private estate around the area (not sure if I still remember the route, hmm…). Since last year, though, they seem to like the Marina Barrage for this kind of run, as far as it may be (tough luck being students travelling on public transport).

Also decided to pop by and say hi to my ex-teachers who are also around for the event. Saw and chatted with all my main teachers in J2 – for Physics, Chem, Math and Econs. Mrs Kong (the Chem teacher) even remembered my name, despite last seeing me 5 years ago. It’s incredible. I’m glad they are still in NJC, and I hope they were glad to see me. 😛

Regardless, some luck eventually brought me to the starting line for the alumni/staff race which was done at the same time as the Sec 3/4 boys’ race. My brother was there for the alumni race, and this is the first time in a while I took part in a race with him. I wasn’t that well prepared for this run – my stamina is still in the dumps after recovering from my shin splint (not sure if it’s a full recovery even) but no harm trying right? Plus there’s a chance for me to win my first medal from NJC.

And in the end I got the gold-flavoured one. It’s crazy. I can still remember my surprise getting the “1” chip from the student helpers at the finishing line. My brother got 5th, and ultimately my sister also got 17th in her J1/J2 girls’ race (a much more difficult race for sure).

It’s a good mix to the week, I guess. It also reminded me why I hated competitive running – so much stress! The sec 3/4 kids were pretty fast too… those in front of me, at least. Probably lungless people out there.

Either way, half the semester (and the whole of February) is gone. That’s terrible.

Ah, the familiar six colours

Round the bend… down the slope is the last stretch before the finishing line

Finishing line. First time in a while surrounded by NJ kids

My first medal from NJC! After graduating, ironically