Sunday, October 21, 2007

Great Eastern Women 10K


Took part in my 2nd 10km race for this year. This was also my 4th ever 10km race, the others being the SCSM 10km in 2002, Mizuno Wave Run 10km in 2004 and last month's SHAPE Run 10km. The night before, I managed to get Cfred84 to give me a morning call on Sunday as I was very tired and afraid that I would wake up late. Had wanted to watch the game between Aston Villa vs Manchester United at 12:15am but decided to give it a miss.

I managed to wake up on time. From my own alarm as well as Cfred84's call. Checked the soccer results and was very please with Aston Villa 1 Manchester United 4 although they did went behind in the 11th min. Quickly changed into my running gear comprising of: green/white color Nike singlet, blue New Balance shorts, Adidas socks and Adizero LT. I met cfred84 at Aljunied MRT. 10mins later, we reached City Hall MRT. While crossing the traffic light to Padang, Cfred84 saw Doraemon_Red running across the road towards Padang as well, but she didn't notice us. We walked towards the Tan Kim Seng Fountain as that was the designated meeting up place with rest of the SGRunners for pre and post-race photo-shoot.

Met s.permadi and jkhoo from SGRunners whom I have never met before. We took some photos before the run, chit chat, while some did stretching. Ultraman also made a guest appearance! The atmosphere was great. Soon, the DJ was coaxing the participants to gather near the start point for the event start. As the we walked towards the start point, we passed by groups of secondary school girls and their cheer leading teams and boy, they were cheering on top of their voices. At 0730hrs sharp, the VIP flagged off the 10km race and off we ran!

I was cruising along, never really push myself as I wanted to enjoy the run. Managed to see the leaders along Nicholl Highway before they turned into Republic Blvd. Near the end of the Nicholl Highway, saw BrokenRunner sprinted passed me. Wow. She was running so fast and so stylo that sometimes, I wished I had half her talent. :p After turning into Republic Blvd, I noticed that for the 5km runners, they had about 3km left to go but the 10km runners had about 4km (or it could be 3.5km). Then I realised that most probably, the 10km runner had to detour somewhere instead of running towards Padang from Esplanade Drive and how right I was! We had to run towards the Asian Civilisations Museum! And after coming round from the Museum, I started to pick up speed as I saw the 150m, 100m, 75m distant markers. Unfortunately, the markers seemed to be situated way too early - definitely further than the 150m away from end point. I was quite out of breadth by the time I managed to cross the finishing line in a nett time of 0:58:54, easily my best 10km race! : ) Though not as fast as other ladies, I was pleased with my effort. However, I may not race another 10km event again as it is really an event all about speed.

After the event, stayed around the end point to have more fun eating ice-cream, etc. Then met up the rest of the SGRunners before proceeding to Marina Square to have our hard-earned brunch, before we parted separate ways. It was nice to try out my 2nd 10km event this year with my friends from SGRunners. Next year, I shall probably go back as a supporter. I guess its more fun taking pictures than running the race!!!

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