Announcement - Regular Blog Post Activities will be Disrupted!

Dear Friends,

I will have to apologize that blog posts from SG Unfit Runners will be erratic for a while.

The reason why is because my 93 years old grandma suffered a stroke while I was away in Europe and that has caused her to suffer from a serious form of dementia. She also has mobility problem and we have recruited the help of a helper to assist her in her daily activities. As a strong and independent person, this blow took a toll on her mental state and she is unable to cope with her loss of independence. Combined with a dementia problem, she has transformed into an angry lady with an extremely foul mouth, leaving my mum and my helper often in tears. She also started to have suicidal tendencies in recent days which we have to monitor constantly.

I have to spend more time to help out with the family in taking care of Grandma and as such, I have to slow down on my writing on SG Unfit Runners. The other members of the Unfit Runners have offered help but they are unable to write as constantly. They blame it on their rusty writing skills which they have seldom used ever since they left school and everyone started comparing their GP (English) scores trying to compete who has the worst score.

On the bright side, I see this episode as a caretaker to an elderly suicidal dementia patient as an experience which I can share with my readers. There has been many incidents so far, some funny, some not so funny... and I will share them here.

Afterall, this is a health and fitness blog!

And I will continue on with our adventures in Poland, Krakow at a later date.

Yours Sincerely,
PES E
Editor of SG Unfit Runners.
 

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Event Alert - Income Eco Run 2017

The SG Unfit Runners are a group of long time friends who joined, Green Project, an environmental awareness club, during their high school days. We became the Garang Guni (A Singaporean slang for used goods collector) of the school and often engage in the less glamorous activities of recycling used goods for the school.

Seems like the Green movement has come a long way since than with now a run with a focus on environmental friendliness.

Income Eco Run 2017, which will take place on 30 April 2017 at the F1 Pit Building, will
continue to drive the green message amongst runners and people in Singapore at large,
calling members of the public to take to the run to show their pledge for green practices.
In fact, Income will up its ante on its green commitment next year by embarking on a detailed
‘green’ audit partnering Green Future Solutions, which helps organizations address
environmental challenges and identify green opportunities.

To hit home the message on reduce, reuse and recycle, Income Eco Run 2017 will introduce
the ‘ Zero-Waste Runner’. As a ‘Zero-Waste Runner’, participants will not receive a finisher
tee and race medal to help reduce wastage from producing race entitlements. The
registration to be a Zero-Waste runner is limited to the first 1,000 participants. They will be
recognized as ‘Zero-Waste Runner’ with a special silkscreened symbol on their race tee and
given a BYO bottle.

For more information, please visit www.incomeecorun.sg

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Budapest - Hungary: The City of Thermal Spas

We wanted to run in Budapest but just couldn't find the strength or motivation to do it. The many days of sinful living eating nothing but meat and beer has sapped our will to crawl out of the bed early in the morning. The intensity of our "Death Marches" around the Castle Hills of Buda and museums have left our feet sore. We badly need a good massage or a hot soak in an Onsen.

Budapest, the capital of Hungary, is also known as the City of Spas with more than 100 thermal springs dotted all around the city. The Unfit runners have been to many baths in the world, ranging from the Onsen in Japan, Wenquan in Taiwan and Moorish baths in Spain. I will say that the look and feel of the thermal bath in Budapest is definitely different. While the baths in Spain and Japan have a more exclusive and private feel to them, the baths in Budapest are bigger and are often visited by families.

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Vienna - Austria: Breathtaking Gardens and Architecture

It's 730am at Vienna, Austria....

PES E, "Hey guys, want to do a run?"

<Deadly silence and snores>

PES E, "Holy shit, there is a Charmander near our apartment!" 

Big Boned Guy, "Where where? I need one!I killed my low IV Charmander and need a new one to walk with me!"

PES E, "We have 10mins left! Let's change to our running attire within 5mins!"

Big Boned Guy, "Rigghhtt! GET UP ALCOHOLIC! Time to run!!"

Within 5 mins, we have changed to our running attire and off for a run.

Vienna in the early morning is a quiet city. Our hotel is located right next to the main shopping district of Mariahilfer Straße which is also known as one of the longest shopping street in Austria. The entire length of the shopping street is almost deserted, with only the cleaners hard at work. In fact, the shops at Vienna closes pretty early at 6-7pm and all the activities move to the pubs and cafes. The shopping street connects the bustling Vienna central railway station and the historical, cultural and political hub of Vienna. 

The first area that you will encounter is the Maria-Theresien-Platz , which is the site of two museums, the Natural History Museum and the Art History Museum. Beyond the Maria Platz, lies the historical district of Vienna where you can find famous buildings such as the Vienna State Opera, St Stephan Cathedral and the Austria Parliament. A myriad of beautifully curated gardens surrounds the historical down town area and I promise that you will be distracted by the beautiful bulbs of roses, blooms, fountains and statues along the way that you will inevitable stop to take some pictures.

Overall, Vienna is a beautiful city to run and explore. The traffic is light in the early morning and the pavements are wide and smooth to run. The good mixture of interesting architecture and beautiful parks keep the run interesting. I will strongly recommend anybody who visits Vienna to plan a run.

Now, if they will just improve their breakfast selection, than it will be perfect...

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Salzburg - Austria: Mozart and The Sound of Music

Salzburg is the birth place of famous music composer, Mozart and the location where the 1965 film: Sound of Music was being filmed. With the old and new city flanking the Salzach river, the city is a mix of gardens, castles, rustic town halls and modern town houses making the city a delight to run and explore. The Salzach river is lined with well paved running and bicycle track and the track is designed to run under the bridges which allows undisturbed running all along the river. To make the run even more interesting, you can either run into the old town area which houses famous landmarks such as the Hohensalzburg Castle, Salzburg Cathedral and the old district lined with beautiful town houses and the birthplace of Mozart.

 

The other bank boosted newer buildings and the famous Mirabell Palace where the scene in which the song "Do Re Mi" from the Sound of Music was featured. The streets are also lined with modern buildings, chic restaurants, fountains and water features. It is one of the perfect spot to chill with a cup of hot tea/coffee in the day and a class of Austrian wine during the evenings.

There is always something new and interesting around the corner at Salzburg, which makes the run always interesting. Combine that with the perfect autumn temperature of 10-15 degrees, the running environment is one of the best I have encountered. I will definitely anybody who visits Salzburg to plan a run and you will be amazed by new encounters and sights.

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SG Unfit Runners Eastern Europe Trip - Oktoberfest

It's the time of the year that the Sg Unfit Runners go on a month long trip to different parts of the world and discover the joy of running in strange new places and discovering new things. Running is probably one of the best way to explore the city, often along with a beautiful sunrise to accompany us on the run. This trip consist of PES E, Big Boned Guy and Alcoholic and while touring eastern Europe is the main objective, the hidden agenda is to actually attend the Oktoberfest at Munich and gorge ourselves silly with beer and pork knuckles before setting off to Salzburg, Vienna, Budapest, Krakow, Prague, Nuremberg and back to Munich. Since we will be walking quite a bit every day, we probably won't be doing a run in every city as it will be absolutely exhausting to do that.

Meanwhile at Munich, we probably will not do any run as the weather consist of rain and drizzle. Attending Oktoberfest under such condition is actually quite miserable we are unable to participate in many of the outdoor activities.

Meanwhile, here are some of the pictures we took during the fair and if you are curious which beer tent and beer is the best and most happening, let us share with you a tip: Ausgustiner.

If you do visit Oktoberfest, that is the tent and beer you must definitely try out. We have talked to locals and visitors who have came from far and abroad and so far, the Ausgustiner tent has been consistently rated as one of the best place to chill out. However, do go there early, probably at 4pm, else you will probably be barred at the entrance by the security to prevent overcrowding.

If you have any questions on Oktoberfest, feel free to leave your comments below!

Meanwhile, many Mr Mime have been spotted at Silberhornstraße area.

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SG Unfit Runners Pokemon Hunt: Pearl's Hill

The Pokemon Go Nest change resulted in many lost opportunities [Pikachu :( ] and created new ones. One of the most exciting change occurred on Pearl's Hill whereby a nest of Abra took up residence on a hill in the middle of China Town. With a only a few Abra in our collection, Big Boned Guy and me met for dinner at the nearby food center before venturing our climb up the hill.

This is probably one of the most unpleasant Pokemon hunt we have ever encountered.

Pearl's Hill key feature is perhaps... Steps. Many many flights of steps. On the evening we went, the place was devoid of any wind creating a hot, humid sauna like environment. To top that off, there are mosquitoes... and there was even before the Zika outbreak in Singapore.

However, all these were bearable if we just needed to perch on a bench and start swiping away. For some reason, the Abra spawns along the vertical side of the hill, forcing hunters to move up and down the narrow stairways. Lastly, Abra has a sadistic sense of humor with a very high flee rate. One-third of the Abra escaped our clutches despite using a deadly combination of Razzberries and Great Balls. In order to get a fully evolved Alakazam, we estimated that we will probably need to hang around for 4 hours. 1 hour into the hunt, we are already drenched in sweat in our office attire and attacked by countless mozzies.

Big Fat Guy decided to call it quits and we rush down the hill heading for the nearest drinking hole.

Besides, that lucky bastard already caught an Alakazam on his way home one day and he needed just a few Abra for his Kadabra.

As for me, I am just happy to get out of the mosquito attack zone.

Unless there is a Snorlax nest for the next nest change, I will probably avoid venturing up Pearl's Hill for any Pokemon hunt in the near future. The amount of stairs climbing is extremely bad for the wobbly knees of Unfit Runners.

Advice for other Pokemon Hunters: Bring lots of water and insect repellent. 
 

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SG Unfit Runners Pokemon Hunt: Pikachu Moves House

I went for my usual run at Bedok Reservoir tonight and as usual, I have my Pokeballs well stocked to catch a bunch of Staryu and Horsea and Magikarp. Other than a couple of Dratini which will occasionally grace my regular running spot, there is no rare Pokemon sightings to rave about in the area.

While running, I observed a sharp spike in the number of Scyther around the reservoir. In fact, there is so many of them that I did not bother to throw my Pokeballs at them after the 8th one... Has Bedok Reservoir suddenly became a Scyther nest? In that case, is that a country wide migration of Pokemon?

I recall that one of my friend is visiting the far fetch Changi Village to visit the well documented Pikachu nest over there and true to my suspicion, Pikachu has moved their house. My friend is apparently pretty upset over this and I will probably have to compensate her for her "pain and suffering".

A few more messages to some of my more avid Pokemon hunting friends who are living around the country has further comfirm my theory. The Pokemons have packed their bags and many of them have moved to other places.

This development makes things extremely interesting for the SG Unfit Runners as we travel around Singapore for our weekly Sunday runs. It also means that we can get to encounter vastly different Pokemon, when we travel back to the same spot a few weeks later for our run.

Meanwhile, we will have to go back to our previous hunting spots to check out if these areas are still spawning rare Pokemon.

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SG Unfit Runners Pokemon Hunt: Botanical Gardens

Having a good share of Peking Ducks (Psyduck) and Sashimi (Magikarp) for our Pokemon Hunt at Marina Bay last week, we examined the Singapore map more unexplored places whereby rare Pokemon will pop up. We had two clues based on the articles we have read so far on where to find potential rare Pokemons:

1) Rare Pokemons are often found in Parks

2) Rare Pokemons are often found in places of high historical importance.

The place that immediately popped into our minds is the newly crowned and Singapore only UNESCO World Heritage site, Singapore Botanical Gardens.

We read that that is a huge number of Pokestops and Gyms within the garden compound which makes the probability of the appearance of a rare Pokemon ever more probable. Motivated by the chance to discover a new Pokemon paradise, we decided to switch from our usual weekly Marina Bay running routine to a part of Singapore where we haven't visited in months.

Ah, the beauty of Pokemon Go! Bringing you to explore new places.. again...

Gathering at the Botanical Gardens Mrt, we were greeted by a Gym guarded by a fierce looking Gyarados and caught a Voltorb while doing our stretching and warm up exercise. We are getting real excited here! Previously Voltorb also appeared in Changi village and ECP which both have a large variety of rare Pokemons. With our hopes high and poke balls lock and loaded, we charged into the sweet smelling garden and found...

Voltorb....

And more Voltorbs....

There is a bunch of Psyducks and Magikarps found around the ponds within Botanical Garden and an occasional Squirtle. Other than that, it's just Voltorbs...

Come on! The Universal Studio Singapore boost a Pikachu nest and Botanical Gardens should deserve better! Singapore Tourism Board should write to Niantic to put an Omanyte nest in there!

On the other hand, Botanical Garden is full of Pokestops (50-100??) and 8 Pokegyms and one loop around the Botanical Garden is roughly around 5km. So if you are looking to replenish your Pokeballs and hatch some 5km eggs, Botanical Garden is an ideal place to check out on your journey towards a Pokemon Master!

Pokemons: Slowpoke, Rhyhorn, Magikarp, Psyduck, Nidoran, Clefairy
Prize catch: 12 Voltorbs

Quotable Quotes:
"Looking for Balls with a face? Head to the Botanical Gardens!" ~ PES E

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We Won the Top 100 Running Blog Award!

The SG Unfit Runner recently received an award as one of the top 100 running blog from a running aggregating platform which compiles running and fitness blogs around the world. We are currently ranked 38, which is unbelievable judging from how lazy we are in posting useful information.  Their judging criteria is as follows:

• Google reputation and Google search ranking
• Influence and popularity on Facebook, twitter and other social media sites
• Quality and consistency of posts.
• Feedspot’s editorial team and expert review

We are quite sure that we are not winning by our influence and popularity on our social media sites and we have been quite laid back in terms of consistency of posts. It must be our dark humor and relate-able contents that got us such a high ranking! Thank you to the judges and juries who bravely gave a bunch of lazy and unfit runners a reward! Time to celebrate our award with Beer and Cookies again!  

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5 Top Rare Pokemon Hunting Spots for Unfit Singaporeans

Sick of catching Weedle, Pidgey and Rattata? The SG Unfit Runners certainly did a lot of exploring this week, thanks to the effects of Pokemon Go and we sought out some of the best spots to catch that elusive Pikachu. While we did took some time to walk around, trying to hatch eggs and throwing pokeballs, we prefer to find a nice cafe and chill. In line with the spirit of an Unfit Singaporean, the pokemon locations we have carefully selected have an air-conditioned cafe, Pokestops and a good chance of catching stuff that we can use as bragging rights! Here are our top 5 locations which we have explored, since the launch of Pokemon Go!

Sept 2016 Editor note: The Pokemon has been moving around recently and some of the Pokemon named in the article may have shifted house. Nevertheless, these places are still great hunting ground for rare Pokemon.

East Coast Park Marine Cove

A great place for families with kids, thanks to a huge playground, free parking (as of Aug 2016) and choice of air-conditioned eateries. Parents can keep an eye on the kids running around the playground, while capturing Pokemons and sipping afternoon tea. We love the large variety of Pokemon around the area. Being near to the sea, it has the typical water Pokemon and interestingly, a good variety of electric and ground Pokemon. The best spot with 2 pokestop is at the Burger King area which also houses a gym

Pokemons: Meowth, Magnemite, Cubone, Rhyhorn, Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Magikarp, Krabby, Staryu
Prize catch: Hitmon Chan, Rapidash, Pikachu

Changi Village & Beach 

We didn't expect to see much in this quiet village town at the edge of Singapore. Boy, we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Pokemon here. We discovered a whole nest of Pikachu at the Changi Beach stretch and when we done catching our fill of the adorable mascot of Pokemon, we chilled out at a small cafe called "A Spoonful of Sugar" for some refreshment. There are two Pokestop at the cafe and the Lure is perpetually on. The staffs are friendly and gave us a breakdown on the types of Pokemon they have caught so far personally. Lot's of electric types Pokemon here which you normally can't find in the hearth-lands.

Changi Village Pokemons: Meowth, Magnemite, Voltrorb, Ponyta, Abra, Drowzee

Changi Beach Pokemons: Pikachu, Sheller, Psyduck, Magikarp, Tentacool

Prize catch: 7 Pikachu (3 escaped!), Magnetron, Electrode, Hitmon Lee

Gardens by the Bay

There has been rumors that the rarest pokemons often spawn at parks and we decided to visit one of the most high profile park in Singapore - Gardens by the Bay. However, the problem with Gardens is that there is a lot walking to be done with almost no air conditioned area except for the Flower Dome. Luckily, after walking around the park chasing after Charmander and Pikachu, we discovered the perfect farming spot at the Mcdonald at the drop off point at the Gardens. Blessed with an abundance of Pokestop, we stayed over 2 hours there swearing never to go out in the hot sun again.


Pokemons: Tentacool, Pikachu, Meowth, Magnemite, Ekan, Growlithe, Diglette

Prize catch: Pikachu, Sand Slash, Primeape

The Cathay

 

Source: Cathay Cineplex

This is the perfect spot for everyone who loves the cute fairy Pokemon which this spot have in abundance. Other than fairy types, there is an abundance of Water types Pokemon making this spot an ideal place to farm for a variety of Pokemon. We stationed ourselves at Starbucks which is in the middle of 3 pokestops with a permanent supply of Lures. We refused to move from this spot and spent the whole evening farming but we had to leave when we ran out of Pokeballs, even with 3 Pokestop replenishing our Pokeballs.

Pokemons: Clefairy, Jigglypuff, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Poliwag, Magikarp
Prize catch: 2 Wartortle, Tentacruel

Serangoon Central - Nex

This spot is one of the favorites for Pokemon trainers. With 4 gyms within 1km range and 4 intersecting Pokestops near to the bus interchange side, Nex is swamped with Pokemon trainers during the weekends. The high foot traffic also means that GPS signal is very erratic in the mall, leading to many Pokemon trainers verbally abusing their poor phones. This place is an Eevee spawning ground and for those who are farming for the ideal Vaporeon, this is one of the highly recommended spot. Check out the Anderson Ice-cream store for the perfect teatime Pokemon gathering with your friends.

Pokemon: Venonat, Eevee, Scyther, Exegcute, Bulbasaur, Bellsprout

Prize catch: 10 Eevee, Exeggutor

Want to Check Out: Vivocity, Sentosa, Chinese Gardens

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SG Unfit Runners Pokemon Hunt: Marina Bay

And so the Great Hunt has started.

The SG Unfit Runners gathered once again, determined to capture all the Pokemons set loose by the evil corporation Niantic unleashed a deadly app that turns human into walking zombies. Some heroes choose to walk, bike, hire uber drivers or tie their phone to the fan, but we have chosen to undertake the challenge via running. The journey is long and there are numerous Pokemons ahead for us to conquer and challenge and many of us may not be able to survive the onslaught of Magikarp, Pidgey and Rattata, but we are determined to explore and seek out where the most powerful of Pokemon can be found in Singapore.  For the purpose of today's hunt, Fangtai the Bug Killer, Big Boned Guy the Rat Hunter, and yours truly, PES E the Bird Talker shall explore the newly opened dungeons of Marina Bay. 

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Pocari Sweat Run 2016 - The Rise of the Demon Lord

It started with a bout of flu that put me unfit for the Pocari Sweat run. Probably that is the result of a combination work, stress and junk food that put me out of commission. It is also an omen of that is left unheeded by the Unfit Runners that the clouds of doom that will descent upon us during this Saturday evening.

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Bocca Del Fuoco Run - A Night Run in Venice, Historical Glass Workshops and Red Wine!

The Island of Murano, Venice, Italy

When we were first contacted by the event organizer of the Bocca Del Fuocco run on helping them spread the world of their run, we were intrigued by the request from Italy. Even though SG Unfit Runners do go for random self-initiated runs in various parts of Europe, we have not covered Italy and Venice yet, with the bulk of our readers coming from Singapore. However, we were assured by the event organizer that our blog is well regarded among the international running media community and our courage to share with the world about our daily slice of running life has made our blog a personal favorite of the organizer.

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