Blogger’s review continues:

I was actually very looking forward to enjoy and have fun in Sesame Street run that I even went online shopping for a super cute Elmo and Cookie Monster bag for Eleanor and I to bring for the run ? At some aspects this event have plenty of rooms for improvements but I do have fun and enjoyable moments in the event as well.

My childhood honestly doesn’t includes Sesame Street. Mine was with Tom and Jerry, Powderpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory and Flintstones as far as I can remember ? But its the same logic I have with Hello Kitty and My Melody, I like whatever’s that’s cute and Sesame Street’s characters looks cute ?

Unless TV channels shows Sesame Streets or they watched it on Netflix or by whatever means that’s available now, I guess kids these days dosen’t know about Sesame Street? I’m very outdated with the technologies these days, already an aunty who’s being laughed at for not having Paynow/Paylah ? Every few years there’s different something that’s popular with the different generation of kids, I guess it’s the Barney or Dora the Explorer that’s popular to them now? ?

Sesame Street is celebrating their 50th birthday this year and it’s Singapore’s first Sesame Street Run. It was 5km distance and it’s held at Tampines Hub. Due to high demand, the organisers came up with a 2km route for those who preferred a shorter distance. Though it’s a nice gesture, but guess it’s because of this, the nightmare of wrong route, confusion of route and shorter distance happened.

Also, take the package for example to register for the run, some people feedback that it’s actually not worth to buy certain packages as individual merchandise sold at event venue is cheaper than buying a “bigger” package and it doesn’t make sense.

(Credits: Sesame Street Run)

Maybe they should come up with family package in future, imagine paying for a family of 4 for about $500 just for a run to get a VIP package? ? Its worth a mini-vacation overseas already ? The kids might even be too small to remember anything few years or even few days later ?

I gotten the VIP package and collected my run pack on Saturday at Tampines Hub. Its a swift collection no matter with the standard or VIP package. Lucky for those who collected the run pack on Saturdays afternoon as many feedback of long waiting time on Fridays with about 2 hours of queue ? Luckily I checked my stuff before I left, they forgot to give me the sweat band. Just disappointed that was informed that cap was to be collected on event day. Had actually wanted to go all out to wear everything in the run pack. In the end the caps shipment was delayed and received an email informing of collection will only be after the event. Didn’t know there’s different design for the sweat band, could have let us select what character we prefer during registration. The quality of sunglass isn’t fantastic, on race day, the rubber thingy on the sunglass dropped on event site and couldn’t be found, now I have a spoilt sunglass which I need to get glue or something to stick it together. Though I must say I really love the socks and scarf, the design’s really nice and the socks is comfy! ?

We reached event venue at about 6.30am. A Facebook post stated that flag off for 5km is at 7.30am but we were only flagged off at 7.50am. It’s a long and hot wait at event venue, though I don’t have any kids but I’m sure kids by the time of the long wait are getting cranky or throwing a tantrum already. It was pretty good to be in the VIP holding area as it’s a very close up view of the Sesame Streets Characters on stage. There’s a very huge and pretty birthday “Macaron cake”. ?

Didn’t know why it’s being held at Tampines Hub as there’s plenty of other event locations such as Sports Hub, Marina Barrage or Gardens by the Bay, even though runners complains of always the same boring route but it’s better than being in a run with messed up routes. Best place would even be at Universal Studio Singapore or even Sentosa would be nice.

By the time we started running, the Sun was out and it was hot. The route isn’t blocked for the event and there’s plenty of traffic lights and roads crossings which was quite disruptive to the run when we have to give way to vehicles and abide to traffic rules. The pavements is narrow to accommodate such a huge amount of participants, some pek cek till they ran/walked on grasses beside the pavements and some even go to the extent of running in roadside. Theres too many participants and I felt machiam stucked in human traffic jam at slow crawling pace and constantly have to be careful the bicycles/PMDs as well as not to bump into small kids ourselves. At least there were the cute alphabets along the route for photo taking ❤

Volunteers weren’t well aware of the route. Guiding runners the wrong direction, some volunteers were shouting on the top of their lungs the directions when there isn’t direction signage in sight at all. Or maybe it’s my poor eyesight that I didn’t spot any? ? There’s also no distance marker. Poor volunteers, kena shouted by angry participants. I felt that it’s a wrong attitude towards any human beings, told myself if I were ever to have kids, I will not display these type of negative attitude in front of them, at least I think I’m not doing it now also lah ? Ultimate goal in life is to become a better person. Towards a more gracious and positive society ?❤ I think it’s not the volunteers fault, organizer should have better briefed them of information.

Many runners finished either shorter distance or very much more shorter distance ? I was directed wrong direction by the volunteer even though I asked again to confirm and when I was about to finished it was only 3.6km so I went for another short loop around Tampines Hub and eventually make it a 4.9km run. Map route on Facebook isn’t clear, should have indicate the distance mark on it.

(Credits: Sesame Street Run)

The ending part was actually enjoyable. I like the bubble bath at the end though I didn’t went to play in it. But I can see the kids were pretty much enjoying themselves ❤

Then it’s the collecting of the VIP pass, finisher medal and a badge as the Birthday gift. Phew, luckily I was registered as VIP as I can see that it’s a super long queue for the standard package registrants. The nice part is the medal is pretty and VIP pass was attached to a very chio lanyard which I will definitely put into use ?

But I was pretty sad at the long queues everywhere ? There’s quite a few activities around at different tentage. I wanted face/hand painting and I wanted balloon sculpture but it’s super super long queue and I give up. Theres only 2 volunteers doing the Balloon Sculpture for the thousands of participants and just 3 volunteers doing the face/hand painting. But no matter what, I need water and at least it’s not a long wait at the queue to collect water and was at the same time given a cookie which was yummy.

When I wanted to take picture with the Sesame Street Characters I was pretty sian when I saw the long queue and remembered that VIP pass have priority access to photo taking. I asked the volunteer do I have priority in taking photos and OMG she didn’t know. I have no choice but to walk away as just nice the Characters are going off for a break as well.

It’s then I overheard a conversation about the VIP lounge so we head there and I was delighted to see Count Von Count, Ernie, Elmo and Cookie Monster there ? Could’ve missed the opportunity if not for having overhead the conversation.

Well, if there’s anymore Sesame Street Runs in the coming years, hope that there’s better location, better route, better communications with participants, better planning and better crowd control as well as more volunteers to cater to the huge crowd at the activities tents to cut short the waiting time.

I should have stayed at home and rest legs as I have District Race the next day after SG Run and I have a 18km on the same day morning ? But it’s my bad, because I signed up for U Run All Access and its almost the end of the year and I didn’t use any credits yet and I don’t want to waste the money ?

There’s 3 race credits to sign up for 3 races from a list of race and I used the first credit to register for Standard Chartered Half Marathon and then for Force of Nature and another one for The Performance Series 3. Then I realised that FON falls on the same day as my pacer training and I couldn’t participate ? All thanks to the helpful staff of URAA to allow me to change my race to SG Run after I emailed them ❤ U Run All Access is actually quite good to get as average out race fee is cheaper and it’s guaranteed race slots when you register with the credits before a certain dateline by URAA.

Considering the different categories available, insane distance like 100km and 50km ultra distance I don’t have the courage to attempt yet and that it would be super torturous to run long distance of 21km or above since I will be doing 18km in the morning and the effort for me to get to the race site is like travel a total of 2 hours to and fro for a 30 plus minutes 5km run seems sot sot for me so I registered or the 10km category.

Immediately I thought I should have signed up 5km instead after the morning run. But sometimes things and events are unpredictable. TMD. I forgot to apply Vaseline. After the 18km run I kena abrasionsssss on my inner thighs and underneath my chest because of the sports bra. Unless you have fat thighs like me and have the sensation of the friction of the fats on the thighs rubbing with each step taken, people with slim chopsticks legs will not understand ? Jealous to the max. Need to slim down liao ? Run more, torturous. Mindful eating, also torturous ? Life is short, I prefer to enjoy it! ?

It really was pain die me, I set up a plan to run walk run walk and thought I could use 2 hours to finish the 10km.

There’s free shuttle bus service provided to and fro the race site at Stadium station. When I reached Stadium station I used my intuition and sixth sense to agak where the shuttle bus would be as there’s no direction sign or indication in sight. Same as after the race when I wanted to find the boarding point ? But I must say other than that the shuttle bus frequency and service was very well organised thanks to the volunteer there guiding the bus driver and make sure bus was full before departing, I waited no more than five minutes each way to get on the bus ?

When I reached the race site, its 5 more minutes to the flag off for the 21km and 32km runners at 6pm, so I walked out about 200m into the route to see them flag off and show some moral support to the runners and manage to spot a few friends ?

After that I proceed to bag deposit, changing my shoes at the same time while queueing for the baggage deposit. It’s a long queue but it cleared up shortly. Then I head quickly to the start pen. It was then announced by the emcee that due to human jam of the runners at Marina Barrage, there will be a delay to clear the jam. So our flag off was delayed for 5 minutes at 6.35pm.

There’s no official pacers available but there were lead cyclist opening path for the top runners. About 1km into the run, a young runner ran beside me and striked a conversation. We had a good chat and he asked me if I’m aiming to run under an hour, which he jio to run together as he wants to encourage runners, I said I’m not and I’m slowing down and he can go ahead. At that point I do want to carry on qnd run but my abrasions are getting so spicy pain ?

After that I started walking when I reached the upslope at Marina Barrage. I think I walked sibeh unglamly with legs opened widely as I tried to avoid the friction between my thighs ? I did applied prickly heat powder prior on my thighs but after the cooling sensation fades off its back to hell, not really hell but machiam chilli padi was applied to very raw skin ? Plastering it instead would’ve been a better option. Or DNS would had actually be the wisest option in the first place ?

While I was walking up the slopes at Marina Barrage I was cursing a lot, but it was a very pretty sight there. I’ve always thought that it was a pretty good dating location, the sun was setting and a lot of beautiful and colourful kites were flying at that time. ? I wished I had Willis with me for a romantic run but he was working. If I were a photographer for runners I will definitely camped there and capture awesome photos for runners. Maybe when I retires from running, I’ll contribute to the running community and be a volunteer photographer at races ❤

Then I do some calculations that if I were to carrying on in the snail pace I was walking at, I might even need 3 hours to complete and even start wondering what’s the cut off time. Eventually I convinced myself just bite my teeth and finish it and started running again! ?

Amazingly, grateful that at about 5km or so into the run I realised the spiciness of the abrasions were gone ?

It’s a very stuffy and warm evening till it started drizzling but just for a little while. Then finally enjoyed some wind! But it was just that teeny weeny short few minutes and back to the stuffiness and still air.

I didn’t notice any distance markers along the route and kept on looking at my watch and counting down the distance to finishing. At the last 1.7km mark on my watch there’s a volunteer very enthusiastically cheering for the runners but was giving wrong information as he was saying: Last 3km to go ? Awwww, I was damn tired already when I heard him and even look at my watch again to double check ? Should have corrected him but at that moment I thought maybe it was my watch error?

It’s a few hundred metres more to the finishing when I saw a backview of female runner further up front who I recalled seeing when we were in the start pen and wanted to encouraged her as she was walking already. I chased up and forgotten what I said to her but she asked me what’s the distance left? I said about 600m and she said OK, she will run with me and we ran to the finishing together ?

There wasn’t any activities in the race site and I grab my finisher medal and tee and left shortly. Podium runners just got their trophies without any ceremonies. I mean no matter how, there should still be ceremonies for the podium runners ? I felt that it’s an inspiration to other runners and also recognition for the podium runners hardwork and trainings.