4th July, Independence Day of the United States. In Singapore, 26,000 runners giving up their sleep, to enjoy a good night out running. The only past-midnight running event in the heart of Singapore (F1 Pit). Runners were able to choose between Full Marathon, Half Marathon, 10km and 5km categories. The 5km Fun Run was a first this year, created to inspire those aged 6 and above to participate in runs as part of a healthy lifestyle. In the race village there was live entertainment, movies and food. As a bonus, 5km and 10km runners were treated to fireworks from the NDP rehearsals.
Myself, I took on the 21km challenge. After a 10 mins delay, we were off. 1.5km into the run, all of us found ourselves climbing up Sheares Bridge which was quite a an unique arrangement. The weather was comfortable and there were ample water stations throughout the route serving ice-cold isotonic drinks. Operationally, it was a well coordinated event with huge improvements from last years (click here to see runners’ ratings and comments and leave your own).
Here are 3 reasons why Sundown is one of my favourite races:
1. Helps me assess my fitness level.
As Sundown Marathon takes place in the middle of every year, it is good time for all runners out there to determine their fitness level. Year in – year out, we may have different priorities and commitments. Running is one of the most participated sports in Singapore, and this mass event gives runners the opportunity to benchmark, evaluate and / or re-align their perspectives.
2. Helps me appreciate security
Singapore is a safe and beautiful country. And you get to appreciate that vividly at night. The awesome night scene when runners top the Shears Bridge, the cool breeze at East Coast Park, the serenity at Kallang Basin overlooking the magnificent Sports Hub are just some of the things we get to enjoy. As Singaporeans, we tends to take things security, peace and beautiful, clean landscape for granted; a night out running make you contemplate these things!
3. Helps me to stay in the loop
As part of JustRunLah!, for me to bring the best and most relevant information to Singapore’s running community, I need to get out there to experience what each runner’s race journey is. Providing unbiased race review and stories coming from our daily running buddies are our key objectives. What do runners want? What do runners need? How can JustRunLah! answer these questions? In my opinion, only if we are runners ourselves.
Once again, congratulations to all OSIM Sundown Marathon 2015 participants!
The most important step in any achievement is to have the courage to start. Rest and recover well! Love your run again!
I think the bag drop could be better. Our bags were simply tagged and shelf-ed. Participants with more than a bag would risk having one missing and unaccounted for, since there was only 1 tag. Also, if the bag handlers have itchy fingers… who knows what might be missing. On a less criminal scenario, our bags were placed improperly, and some stuff falls out accidentally. To prevent any blame game, it would be wise to place our belonging into a large bag and secured during the handing over. Just saying…. 😛
too much talking for the 10km event race before the run, also it passed the starting time should the 10km supposed to starts at 10pm, please do not delay the race as many of the runners is concern for the last transport timing, MRT and buses, so that they don’t have to spent so much money to take a taxi and it’s not easy to get one due to so many runners might be waiting for that taxi. thks.
I was at the front group in the starting pen, yet they still split it into 2 flag offs, so I ran in the 2nd wave. I was annoyed at first for the 5-minute delay, but then I realised we are running mostly on park connectors, on an out and back route. With that many people running (Strava Flyby showed the last flag off was 30+ minutes after I started), I believe they planned it well as I never encountered jams/slowdowns through out my run.
But I also did myself a favour by estimating how long I will run the 10K, estimating how long I need to walk to the nearest MRT, finding out ahead what time is the last train going home (including line transfers), so I was in the starting pen within 5 minutes that it opened.