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| The Jigsaw finishing pic! One of the most memorable race gift I ever gotten! |
The 100plus Passion run probably marks the first official 9km run I am embarking on. I had done a few 6-8km runs and an accidental 10km run and that's it. I know that I can probably complete the run, but a bout of flu made me decide to forgo my runs for the past 2 weeks. I did a remedial run of 4km a few days before but I wondered if that is really enough for me to complete the historical 9km run.
The run is held along East Coast Park and joining me for the run were Big Boned Guy and Alcoholic. The holding area for the run had an almost carnival like atmosphere with cheer leaders and mascots roaming around. The organizers also thought that we would enjoy Gangnam Style and kept playing it over and over, failing to think that we were probably already sick and tired for that song after it became popular a few months ago.
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| The Race Map along ECP |
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| Photos taking time! |
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| Our favorite booth. The 100-plus isotonic drink booth! |
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What? They are letting the kids run first?! Long 1 hour wait
before we got flagoff |
As the Sun started to dip below the horizon, the flagoff began, starting off with the kids and youth runs. While waiting, we just indulge in cups and cups of free flow 100-plus and various other beverages, while making snide comments on other runners in strange attires. It was almost 1 hr later before we were flagged off at 530pm and we were pretty cooled down by than. The run is pretty typical of a ECP run. Straight smooth road with hordes of runners trampling over the helpless grass as the horde of runners threatened to overwhelm the generously paved ECP track.
The most pressing problem for me during the run, was not the challenge of completing 10km, but rather, how to run in a straight line keeping my eyes closed. The running singlet, in bright orange, is simply too disturbing for my eyes. For some reason, I obtained a headache after staring at a sea of bright orange joggers all around me and I typically have no such problems with bright colors. Perhaps it is that shade of orange, administered in such huge doses, that triggered a round of neuron protest in my neural network!
Thanks to my laziness for the past few weeks, I was out of breath 4km into the run and literally struggled through the last 5km. I had to slow down my pace in order to preserve my strength and the orange induced headache is not helping. I spent the rest of the journey looking at my feet in order to recover from the orange headache and concentrated on the music in my ears. This is definitely not funny. I swear that I will do more training by staring at my orange singlet for hours, right after I completed this irritating race.
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| Everyone crowing into the starting line |
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| A sea of orange. My eyes!! |
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The turning point. Now there is orange running away and towards
me! Oooo, my head! |
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Exhausted already. Feel like dropping into Jumbo for some crabs
before carrying on. |
After much struggle, I managed to hit the 8km mark. Feeling hopeful that the end was near, I put on a fresh burst of energy and increased my pace into the last km of the race. However, the race did not end at 9km. It went on for another 400 meters. I was cursing at the organizers at one point of time, thinking that they must have mistaken 10km and 9km and I was made to run another 1km on empty fuel. Upon finishing the run and checking with the guys, they too clocked more than 9km in their respective distance trackers. I know that the organizers were being nice by making us run the extra mile, but to a out of shape jogger with an aversion to bright orange, that 400 meters were torture.
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| The End point at last. Bright lights! Ooo, my eyes! |
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| Where is that 100-plus booth! I need MOAR!!! |
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| Dinner at Simpang Bedok. Hydration first! |
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| We really need that protein! |
I trudged into the 100-plus tent and started chugging down 100-plus hoping that might cure my headache magically, given that now I was surrounded by sweaty people in bright orange shirts. I quickly summoned my friends and urged them to leave immediately for dinner, before the vehicular jam out of ECP begins.
My headache miraculously disappeared once we reached the food paradise of Simpang Bedok. The next time I go for a race, I will definitely take into consideration of the color of the shirt before I sign up for it!
By the way, the goodie bag is fantastic, as it is a nice slim fit laptop bag with PASSION RUN embroidered on it. It became my day to day laptop backpack which I carried to office!
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