Race Day
The flag off was at 5am. I had to wake up at an unearthly hour of 3am, grabbed my breakfast and was on my way out of the house by 3.30am. I reached the venue (F1 Pit Building) at about 4.10am. The first thing was to pay a visit to the mobile toilets, where long queues were seen. Did what I had to do and made my way to the start pen. I was glad to be in the first wave. By then, it was already 4.45am, and together with the crowd, I was anxiously waiting for the horn to signal the start of the race. Even though it was almost 5am in the morning, it was strangely warm and humid. I was already perspiring profusely just by standing in the start pen.
5am… The horn went off…. Everybody started to surge forward, clapping and waving their hands in the air happily. There we go..! By the time I crossed the timing mat, about 1 min had elapsed already. So you could imagine how huge the 1st wave was.
As I starting running at my supposedly comfortable pace, I was surprised at how lethargic I was. The air was thick with humidity and difficult to breathe. As the others zoomed past me, I could see that their bodies were already drenched in sweat. I continued on, and interestingly, a runner in full Spiderman suit zoomed past me. Soon I neared the 8km mark, and my worst fear started to manifest itself in the form of a rumbling stomach. I silently cursed my luck and knew that I had to quickly find a toilet. Luckily, I was swinging by Sports Hub, and managed to break from the running crowd and got a cubicle for myself. No queue! Lucky me! Wasted almost 5 minutes to conclude my business, during which sweat was pouring non-stop from my head and getting into my irritated eyes.
I emerged from the toilet and started to run but the momentum was gone and I could not find it back throughout the race. My legs felt like jelly and the humidity really got to me. Started drinking from my bottles and grabbing cups of cold water from the hydration points from 10km onwards and thereafter at every hydration points I passed by. At about the 10km mark, there was a hydration point and gel station. As I stopped to take a cup of water, I was shocked to see another runner in front of me grabbing as many gel packs with his two hands and trying to stuff them into his pockets! My goodness! I was like “huh?” As I passed the 14km mark, there were bananas given out, and I was tempted to take one. But anyway, I didn’t, as I was afraid of upsetting my stomach again.
The killer slope at the Marina Barrage, where you run up the slope, do a circle and run down again, really robbed me of my strength and stamina. This was near the 16km mark. After this horrible stretch, I started to alternate between jogging and walking. It was when I passed by 20km, that I started to use every ounce of my remaining energy and sprint to the finishing mark… 2:45hrs. A far cry from my PB of 2:23 hr obtained 2 weeks ago.
But nevertheless, it was a good experience for me as I had experienced the slopes along Nicoll Highway and especially the one at the Marina Barrage, as well as the killer weather. Well, no excuses….I had made up my mind to re-start my training on slopes and intensify them, so that the next run would be even better!
End of Race
For this run, it comes with a finisher tee and a medal that were given out after the finishing line, and a can of cold refreshing 100 Plus as well which I gulped it down in double quick time 🙂 I did some cooling down exercises before heading off for home. My next half marathon is likely to be the re-scheduled 2XU Run, which new race date has yet to be announced.
Click here to for the photo gallery of NTUC Income Run 350 2015.
