Gosh how unprepared were we for a real messy and muddy trail run, but how much fun was it to get messy and muddy just like kids.
I’ve been wanting to explore the Green Corridor with my 7 years old girl for some time and Compressport’s trail run gave us the incentive by organising a 5km category. Perfect length for my girl with double the benefits. She got to experience the ruggedness of the Green Corridor whilst receiving a finisher medal to remember the event.
With a reasonable flag-off at 9.30am for us non-morning people, we huddled into the starting pen just in time to see the first 10km racers passing through their halfway mark.
Taking off 5 minutes earlier than the scheduled time we shuffled our way through the starting line and merged with the 10km participants. It was a little tight on such a narrow route given the thousands of participants making it a little difficult to start running immediately.
Just as we were able to get ourselves going, within a kilometer we passed beneath one of the overhead bridges to find ourselves stuck behind numerous runners just standing still, unsure of what was happening ahead. We didn’t account for the mini-pond that was as wide as the running path and possibly as long as 15m (I could be dreaming this but I don’t think so). Ah what to do? We wore old runners but we weren’t particularly prepared to get wet, muddy and squishy shoes so early in the race and the look of horror on Trinity’s face was the deciding factor to attempt to circle the pond on the minuscule amount of surface left to tread. Just like everyone else except for the 10km gung ho runners who’ve been dealing with this surface for 6km already and just no longer cared about how filthy they were going to get. They barreled their way through the pond splashing everyone in sight.
I spent most of the race telling Trini it’s okay to get muddy, don’t worry about your runners getting dirty, enjoy the messiness of this race, have fun with this experience. Phew, on and on it went. John and I enjoyed it but we’re not convinced that Trini did the same. She did however, enjoy the Green Corridor and kept asking about the old railway bridge which unfortunately, I had to tell her it was in the opposite direction. Looks like we might have to go out another time before the Corridor closes mid-year so she can experience the railway bridge across Bukit Timah Road.
We spent pretty much the entire race dodging puddles, turned up mud piles or getting around runners who were trying to keep their runners as reasonably clean as possible (good luck to that).
Trini found this race very tiring when compared to the road races she’s used to. So much weaving and dodging, trail route instead of road route and of course the distance was wearing on her legs and cardio fitness. However as we were nearing the end we took her by her hands and sprinted our way to the finish line.
With all the dried up mud on our clothes, legs and feet we figured we’d be better off getting on a bus home instead of a taxi. We didn’t think any taxi driver would appreciate dry mud in his car. Along with fellow filthy racers we boarded Bus 10 and made our way home, looking forward to a long hot shower and scrubbing ourselves clean.
It was a fun event. I wouldn’t intentionally seek out muddy races but if the situation presents itself unbeknownst to me, I’m always happy to embrace the experience and just roll with the punches. Just like we did with this race.
Cheers
