Been caught up with mundane routine and so not able to write as often.  About 3 weeks ago, a week before the SAFRA Bay Run and Army Half Marathon, I found myself at The Performance Series (TPS) Race 2, Punggol East/Coney Island, preparing to run the second race in the second series.  I had upped the game this year by doing half marathons instead of 10 km.  I would have completed the second series with a Half Marathon too, if not for the fact that I had already signed up for the Spartan Beast to be done in November period, just a week or two after TPS Race 3.  So my race 3 will be just a 10 km race.  However only two weeks or so ago, Spartan Organizer announced a change in date and venue.  Anyway, that will probably make another story if I go into it.  And I don’t think I can change my race 3 into a half marathon at this time.

Coming back to race 2 of TPS 2, I was feeling fairly confident at that stage of completing half marathons within my usual timing.  I had just completed two other 10 km races in intervals of two weeks since the Gold Coast Marathon.   I wasn’t fully recovered from my fractured back to feel that I would be able to achieve a PB.  But I knew I would be able to conquer the pain in the back, even for the half marathon quite soon after the full marathon.  It may also be the ‘feel-good’ effect of complete the Gold Coast Marathon with my PB.

Now all that I hope for as I traveled to the venue was fine weather.  In fact that day’s weather was very good – cool and a bit of wind.  As I walked towards the start line, someone togged out with water bottles walked beside me and started chatting.  He was also doing the half marathon.  Then he talked to the two ladies walking in front.  They turned back and congratulated him for being all ready.  Then they looked at me and said something like ‘you’re ready too, oh and you have nothing.’  I looked at my empty hands and usual tights and said yeah, that was about it, also ready in my own way.  As we walked further, the man explained to me that he was getting ready for Standard Chartered Marathon and I said that was great.  It had never crossed my mind to question how anyone prepare for a race.  I think everyone is different and it’s always good to prepare sufficiently according to individual differences.  For me that means to run as light as possible.

Then he branched off to the washroom and I walked further to the start line.  Soon after, we were flagged off.  I enjoyed the run and weather.   I found the loop tight at the beginning where bottlenecks were encountered in the narrow path.  But was able to still jog along at those stretches.  There were also parts of the route where bikers were asserting their right to the space but they weren’t aggressive but just impatient at certain times.   In the last part, when we entered the ‘woods’ of Coney Island proper, I found myself slowing down on the sandy, pebbled and grass patches.  I had not run on trail since early last year.  Otherwise it was more or less the usual half marathon pace for myself.

Hydration was adequate and route was well marked.  Different scenery from the usual Marina Bay or other races.  Again, we got our timing results super fast, something which this series can also boast of since Race 1 this year.  After collecting the finisher medal and tee, I made my long way back from East to North West again.  This was my number 11th half marathon since 2015.  Another successfully well organized TPS Race !  I was also pleasantly surprised to achieve PB in the other distance (fastest 15 km) according to Strava during this race though it was not my fastest half marathon to date.

Next up will be my blog on my 12th half marathon distance, but first trail half marathon in the Green Race done and dusted last week.  Very soon, I was just hoping to see if there are any nice photos to share… Run Happy, Run Safe.

This is my first Puma Night Run 😍 There is 6km and 12km distance for individual, group of 2 or group of 4. I participated in the 12km individual category. It’s a little bit siao the race village opens at 3pm and flags off is at 7pm 🤣 3pm is a timing that I can link with some scary words such as “hot”, “chow tar” and “Sun” 😭 Ok lah, as long as the organisers got activities to entertain participants who don’t mind to get roasted by Sun can reach there early and go to the booths for the activities to get the LED wrist band and LED shoe lace 😍 I very gian the wrist band and shoe lace actually but thought that it will be given out finished by the time I reach. Sibeh tired already for my busy day and just reach in time to the race site for flag off.

Though running at Seletar Aerospace Park is not something new to run at for me because in the past I frequently run pass there while running to Yio Chu Kang Road or Jalan Kayu. Decided to sign up as the run is near home. Not exactly really near home lah but runable distance of about 4.5km away is considered near for me and there’s straight bus number 117 with just a few bus stops from home to reach the race site! 😁 If I hard core enough I would have run there think I long time no hard core already. It’s a busy morning with many runs going on such as Metta Charity Run, Runners League, the Green Race. And I got the Urban Race, a charity event. The whole morning our team of 5 we were running around, going to the pit stops located islandwide and taking part in the missions is tiring enough already 🤣

When I thought I sibeh lucky got straight bus from home turns out machiam a mini nightmare, due to road block for the Puma Run the bus detour, after we alight the bus stop we need to walk more than 1km to the race site! 🤣 But 1km only actually is nothing right? The problem is prior to the run, I woke up at 5am for the charity race, event end at 1pm. Willis also had Runners League, running the 10km category. We then meet to collect POSB run race pack and Yellow Ribbon run race pack which the runs is happening next month. The race packs were awesome! Bought a shoe wing and yellow ribbon pin at the yellow ribbon REPC to show some support 😊

My Garmin already shows 21000 steps for the day when I reached home at 5pm 😵 Went to shower and lay flat on bed to sleep even for that 10 minutes I also shiok 😆 Sibeh shag 😂

We’re already pretty late, when we alight the bus it’s almost 6.30pm. Walked at quickened pace to the race site and headed straight to the start pen which I think is super messy because people were just crowding there plus nobody is checking whether you have a bib or not for the run. Got babes stand on top of the platforms at the flag off and throw light sticks to the runners while waiting for the flag off. Saw many runners already wearing the super chio Puma LED wrist band and I thought it should be given out by the time I finished the run 😭

Anyway since the location of the run is already there, with atas registration fee, I thought that Organizers can go the extra mile get collaborations with Seletar Airport and give us an atas experience to run on the runway? 😍 Even just a tiny part of it like 100m will also be shiok right? Maybe too much to ask for since Gold Coast Airport Marathon and SIA charity run also no such good lobang to run on the runway 😂

Flag off is on time and amazingly I still got the strength to run after a tiring day. The route of 12km is shorter, I finished the 11.6km in 1hr11mins as per my Garmin. Willis too, after a 10km run already in the morning I can see he can still chiong but he runs with me 😊 He said the Runners League is very poorly Organised and they cancelled on the shuttle bus last minute and many runners have to walk all the way from GBTB east back to Satdium MRT.

Willis is always a little bit ahead of me during the run, keeping a look out of the road and tell me when the road is unbalanced and when there’s a possible risk that may trip and fall. Tips of advise to single guys who run, that’s how you “run out a Girlfriend” 🤣 Yup, Willis and I first met during Safari Zoo Run when he started running beside me and that’s how it all started 😊 Back to the run, many parts of the pavement we ran on have really these “traps” of uneven ground and protruding strips that people might just trip and fall if they didn’t see it. Plus it’s very dark and crowded at certain parts of the route. Around 10km on the way back, I saw the volunteer attending to a runner sitting down by the road side with blood on her legs 😭

The hydration points is quite far apart and there’s only the not cold plain water along the route. Just the part of the route at the last uturn point at 9km is messy, as I think the route is diverted wrongly, runners running back were in the most innerlane but there’s a route the the most outer right lane barricade by the road has nobody running on it to matter to or fro. Runners heading back in the end have to cut across the runners running in opposite direction to run on the road that is barricade up for runners to run. The road is not nicely diverge for the runners.

Collected the nice medal, banana and huge bottle of mineral water at the finish point and we went to the Red Bull tentage to get a can of Red Bull with the can already opened nicely for us 😊

There was not much runners back yet. Went to take a few photos and suddenly remember the Puma LED wrist band! When we head to the tentage, are still giving out the wrist band. Lucky us! I guess there were only about less than 50 wrist bands spread on the table and if we were a little more late, no wrist band for us. Phew! Get to choose the colour from blue, green, red and white. Then we thought might as well try to see if we can get the LED shoe lace. There is total of 4 booths to visit but we only visited 3 and participated in their activities such as posting picture of their products on Instagram which I think many people will delete straight away after that 😂 Though we only visited 3 booths, they still give us the LED shoe lace though the volunteer tell us we should have gone all 4.

Heard that there’s many celebrities to the run but I’m not sure what type of celebrities are there. I don’t know any new Korean Oppa group nor know any new MediaCorp new celebrities, my era I only know of Li Nan Xing, Patricia Mok etc 😆 Luckily we got no baggage deposit because there queue to collect is very very long 😨 There was a concert going on and all the songs sang are super nice. Registration fee is expensive but worth it because the Organizers and sponsors really throw in money to do such a awesome concert and provide the LED wrist band and shoelace. Race site very ulu, I have to walk so far from the bus stop also worth it 🤣

That basically was what it was, I realized – a race running with soldiers.  SAFRA Singapore Bay Run and Army Half Marathon was into its 25th edition and SAFRA was commemorating 50th year of NS too.  The entry fee started at $9 for the 5 km fun run, $12 for the 10 km and $16 for the half marathon, if you are NSmen.  There was also the NS50 team run and the family for lives (800m) challenge.  I would have dived in to sign up for the 21.1 km if not for two reasons, that I’m wary of aggravating my back injury (see my old posts) and that I was still apprehensive about the massive jam that I experienced in the half marathon last year.

Anyway, as luck would have it, I also managed to get a free ticket by running with Futuro.  It was a last minute inclusion as my friend SY sent me an email from the sponsor.  I read the email late and after an initial rejection, I was later accepted.  I chose the 10 km race. I therefore collected my race pack from 3M(Futuro) on the following Monday after the normal racepack collection date and received some additional items minus the official tee.

Race day was another fine morning.  It didn’t rain.  And it was not too hot to start with.  I have to reach by 6.15 am so that we could take the photos first before the official start at 6.30 am.  I thought it was a bit too close to the starting time so I planned to get there before 6.15 am.  I managed to get there but the crowd was massive and for some reasons I didn’t see anyone in same outfit near the venue.  I moved with the massive crowd to the start line, thinking I must have somehow missed it.  I would take my own photos later and tagged as required.

I inched forward towards the front as I saw the sea of red.  The DJ was doing the usual encouraging intro and getting the crowd ready.  After a few more minutes, it was flagged off.  Then we were stopped because we would have to be in wave 2.  After about 6 minutes or so, we were flagged off too.  I ran.  All around me, I saw mostly young crew cut heads.  First km was soon completed, and glancing at the Garmin watch, I was shocked I was doing 5 plus min pace.  This was way too fast vs my usual time – 7 min.  Slow down… Second km seemed to flash by.  Another 5 min plus pace somehow.  Then the hydration stop.  But I wasn’t thirsty so I skipped.  Except that the bottleneck had started.  Couldn’t run.  Just moved a step at a time.  I was engulfed in an army of runners literally.

A thought occurred to me then.  Envied these young men.  They are young soldiers mostly and have the opportunity to take part in such events – my times, practically nobody really talked about running races like this event.  No, this started 25 years ago, so it was non-existent for me during my NS time.  Really ‘lao peng’ – old soldier.

… Back to the race…

And so that kind of run,stop, run characterized the rest of the journey in certain tight spots.  There was even a flight of stairs up and run for a short stretch, then another flight of stairs down.  Still, I wasn’t panting but I didn’t enjoy the ‘transition’.  After a while I settled into my usual 7 min plus pace and skipped another hydration stop because there were just too many people.  I stopped at the hydration station only once as a result.

My Garmin showed that the mileage marker was about 500-600 m off consistently so I guessed I was going to do 10.5 km or so instead of 10 km and that further reinforced the thought that a PB was off the radar despite the fast first two km.  Weather was cool and the surroundings were familiar to other races that started off near the Esplanade.  One most scenic point was when we saw the heads of the famous otter family bobbing in the waters on our right side. A few stopped to take photos too.

Soon I could see the finishing line and found myself still having enough energy to pick up some pace.  Grabbed a couple of the 100-plus and skipped the banana and collected the medal.  After strolling around and seeing the endless group of runners coming in, I decided to go back.  No chance of spotting any of my friends and perhaps they have already gone back too.  A nice morning race despite the jams.  It was reported that 41000 runners took part in the whole event, so it was a successful event despite the crowds.  Took some photos after the event and tagged #RunningwithFuturo too.

A pleasant  experience to be sponsored and glad to be able to support Futuro products as I had used it before too, in the past.  So thank you, Futuro for the opportunity.  And a bit of nostalgic reminder of NS times.  Was surprised too to find that I’ve achieved a few records based on Strava apps (2016-17).  Been a long time since my current injury that I’ve done sub-7 min pace for 10 km distance.  Maybe this is my way of a Salute too to all NSMen for their contributions for past 50 years – to run and sweat it out together in this event.

So sometimes you reap your rewards later at an unexpected time.  The important thing is to believe and keep on going even if sometimes things look tougher at each turn in life.  As I always say, running resembles life – there’s always ups and down, regardless of your age and station in life.  Run Happy, Run Safe.

(Credits : Thank-Yous are due to Run Gallery Sg and Futuro for their photos of the event)

Hola Runners! As “Every Singaporean Son”, we have to go through the rite of passage in what we called National Service. We have to lay down at least 2 years of our lives and together as one people serve the nation even though we are all from different backgrounds and ethnicity groups. From strangers to acquaintances and from “Ah Boys to Men.” The camaraderie stays with us throughout our lives even when we already have Operationally Run-Out Date (ORD), Operationally Ready National Servicemen (ORNS), Mindef Reserves (MR) or became Ex-NSmen. This is a special year as it marks the 25^th edition of The SAFRA Singapore Bay Run and the Army Half Marathon. The difference between these two runs is that The SAFRA Singapore Bay Run comprises of the competitive 10km Race, non-competitive SAFRA 5km Fun Run as well as the 800m Family Challenge. Whilst the Army Half Marathon as the name speaks for itself is the 21km run. As this is also the 50 years of National Service (NS50), a special NS50 Team Run category has been introduced to mark the Silver Jubilee. This is a non-competitive run and all past and present NSmen are welcome to participate. Teams of 10 runners each will complete a 5km route together to make up a total distance of 50km to commemorate NS50. This much-awaited event was held on Sunday, 20^th August 2017 at the Esplanade Bridge, Padang.

Before the event proper took place, there was already much fanfare organized by SAFRA to promote and create awareness for the run at its various SAFRA open houses during the June holidays as well as encouraging the public to sign up which we could hear during the airing of SAFRA’s very own radio station: Power 98FM. “Dun say we bojio, we jio you now!” In addition, there was also the complimentary training to prepare runners for the 21km and 10km race through a series of lead up runs. This is indeed a good initiative by SAFRA as it encourages and helps runners to prepare early for the actual day of the event.

21km Army Half Marathon Route

Together with my running kakis: JC & SL, we took part in the 21km Army Half Marathon. The running routes were released weeks before the event hence; we were well informed and mentally prepared for how the run would be.

The 21km Army Half Marathon route is as follows: Esplanade Drive • Fullerton Road • Finlayson Green • Robinson Road • Maxwell Road • Shenton Way • Marina Boulevard • Central Boulevard • Marina Gardens Drive • Marina Mall • Marina Grove • Marina Barrage • Gardens by the Bay (East) • Marina East Drive • East Coast Park Service Rd • Fort Road • Mountbatten Road • Stadium Boulevard • Stadium Drive • Nicoll Highway • Republic Avenue • Republic Boulevard • Raffles Avenue • Esplanade Drive • Fullerton Road • St Andrew’s Road.

Collection

Race Entry Pack Collection (REPC) was held over the 3 days on 4 – 6 August 2017 (Friday to Sunday) between the timings of 11am to 8pm daily @ Marina Square Central Atrium. There was already the race atmosphere in the air and you could actually see the mood of most participants getting ready and excited for it. I collected my REPC on the first day itself and reached the venue at 10.50am being kiasu. The booths were already opened and there were participants collecting their REPCs. What initially was thought to be a huge crowd and long waiting queue turned out to be smooth and without delays at all during the collection. The human traffic flow was well managed and the signages for the different race categories were properly demarcated. I had my REPC collected by 11am. Even JC and SL who collected theirs on the weekends also did not encounter any crowds at all.

What impresses me was that after collecting the REPC and before exiting the collection booth, there was a mock-up “finishing line” and upon walking over it, was able to detect the working condition of your bib. The participants’ details will also be shown on the wide television screen where they could check on.

Race Day

Fast forward to the race day itself and I was informed that JC could not join us for the run as she was down with flu which only left SL and myself. I reached the race village at 3.30am and after some warm-ups, quickly made my way to the start pen that was at the Esplanade Bridge. However, the runners were not allowed to proceed to the start pen that was about 100m away from The Esplanade that served as an initial holding area for them. At 4.25am, 5 minutes before the flag-off time we were then allowed to proceed to the start pen that saw many runners running towards it hoping to be the first to start the race. Even before the race starts, many runners were already sweaty due to the warm and humid weather although it was in the early hours of the morning. I was hoping for some rain to cool down the temperature but it did not happen. After some safety announcements by the emcees, the race for the half marathon was finally flagged-off at 4.38am according to my watch. Woo…Hoo! Against the backdrop of the city skyline illuminated by the street lamps and building lights, there was a sea of runners mostly donned in their red army singlet running down the roads that were earlier on, sleepy and quiet. There were more than 41,000 participants in this year’s event across all the categories!

The new running route for this year’s event was generally smooth and without steep slopes and uneven paths. It was well organized and planned. Unlike other races, there are also no cyclists allowed on the running route that is another plus point and makes the runners safe. All races should adapt to this good practice and once the roads have been demarcated as running routes, no vehicles of any kind should be allowed. The warm and humid weather was also complemented with the many hydration points along the way that helpd to keep the runners cool and hydrated. Volunteers also provided the runners some Tiger Balm Active Muscle Rub to ease and sooth their aching muscles as well. However, the downside was that there were insufficient mobile toilets and not adequately placed along the way and runners have to queue up whenever they spotted them. You could also see the queuing line while running past the public toilet at East Coast Park.

Along the running routes, there were also street-side performers entertaining the runners to both motivate and cheer them on. There were the live band, cheerleaders, belly dancers, saxophonist, stilt walkers, etc. Indeed, it was never a dull moment during the run as there were always activities lined up for the runners. There were also sufficient staff onsite to attend to medical emergencies as well. There were also bananas provided for the runners at certain stations as well.

After finishing the run, I proceeded to collect both my finisher medal and finisher tee. The collection booth was quite empty and smooth flowing when I proceeded there. Overall, it was an enjoyable run and one to remember for a long time.

As this is a very special year where we commemorate 50 Years of National Service (NS50), I would like to pay a tribute to all NSmen past and present, I Salute You! “Hormat NSmen!” “Tentera Singapura, Yang Pertama Dan Utama.”