Yesterday I took part in the Straits Times Run in the City 18.45km race. It is a race with a weird distance, and a weird timing – just a week before the Sundown marathon. Strangely enough I registered for the ST Run before signing up for the Sundown half marathon… which on hindsight does seem like a ill-informed decision (especially considering how pricey the ST Run is).
Preparing for this race has been more mentally challenging than it is physically. I wasn’t sure whether to treat this race as a race to push, or just as an easy run. I wanted to hit my half marathon goals for Sundown and if I were to push too much for this race, it would be difficult to still feel fresh for a night race less than a week later.
Thankfully Running Department is pacing this race and many of my Run 350 pacer buddies have volunteered again to pace for this race. It was really nice joining them for their training runs on Saturdays at East Coast, and for their public “run with pacer” runs at Kallang and Punggol, because nice company always makes long runs feel shorter.
Race day soon arrived (this pacer programme was quite short – only five weeks) and I found myself back at F1 Pit Building, but instead of getting balloons tied on my singlet, I was helping my friends pin their bibs and attach their balloons. Even though Run 350 was only last month, I can still feel the pre-race excitement in the air. I guess a race’s a race…
After a 15 minute delay the 18.45km race finally started. The weather’s awesome right from the start. A heavy downpour became a nice drizzle, which ensured the temperature remained cool (for real) and it was never uncomfortably humid.
I did the first 2.5km (or so) with the 1:40 pacers (running at 5:25/km) before deciding to go a bit faster. At this point I still had no intention to go below 4:50/km. So I trodded on alone for a while, not realizing that I was getting to the 4:4x/km territory after a while. It’s the combination of nice weather, the ‘smooth’ feeling and really, just not me checking my watch at all, that led to this outcome. Actually I don’t recall checking my watch much, if at all, during the entire race. Looking back, it’s no wonder why my splits were all over the place, hahaha!
I was having quite a good time and decided to add a bit of cheer to the tired-looking volunteers stationed along the race route. Felt a bit sad for those stationed in the most ulu areas, like Marina East Drive and some portions of Bay East, so decided to greet all the volunteers. It’s actually a simple thing – just “good morning” (and it helps to make sure I am regulating my breathing; I still didn’t want this to be a “pushed” race) and hope for a response. Turns out almost all of them heard and replied in kind. It’s great!
Helped by the familiarity of the route (it’s almost exactly the same as the Run 350 route), the kilometers flew past quite quickly and the race was over. My final timing was 1:26:54 (as recorded on my Garmin, not sure what the official result is), at an average pace of 4:42/km. What’s not recorded was the joy of running I felt for just about the entire 90 minutes, from feeling the strength in my legs, my relaxed breathing, to experiencing new parts of the route that I didn’t pick up the last time. I can still vividly remember the flooded grass patch along one stretch of the route near Marina East with the sound of bullfrogs everywhere… not something I expected so close to the city centre.
Race ended with smiles all around, breakfast with my RD friends and then back home for a nice nap. 🙂 Onward to Sundown half marathon!
Swee Life 