It rained on my run

So Saturday was my Hello kitty run. I woke up at 6:20am to get ready. Our plan was to leave at 6:30am.

At 6:30am, hubs was in a photo-taking mood. Never mind I was sleepy, face still swollen from sleep and not completely ready yet. He checked the images and wasn't too happy.

I tried to look more awake. Finally hubs was satisfied with the images.

We had planned on taking the train but as we were busy posing for selfies, we ended up leaving home at 6:40am. So hubs panicked and decided we should take a taxi. He took a photo of me waiting for a taxi.

In the taxi, I wanted to play plock but the photo taking marathon continues.

We didn't inform the taxi driver there was a Hello Kitty run and we ended up in a huge traffic jam. Perhaps we should have taken a different route. By the time we reached Vivocity, it was 7:45am. If we had taken the train, we would have reached earlier.

I was expecting a crowd but it was more terrifying in person. At first I couldn't even see the starting point. But we kept walking forward until we could walk no further and in the distance we could see the starting point.The mood was good and people were generally there for fun. Lots of kids, some in prams.

The MC announced that they expected 17,000 runners and that scared me. I looked behind me and there was a sea of people.

At 8am, the MC initiated the flag off. But he only allowed a small batch of people to go through. The next batch of flag off was in another 4mins. That got me really worried. Although we had gone forward as much as we could, we were still some distance away from the starting point. The night before,  my girl had checked the weather forecast and she told me it would rain at 9am. The delay in the flag off meant we could very well be caught in the rain. So every time I saw a gap in the crowd, I would move forward, dodging, bending, whatever it took and this got us much closer to the starting point.

In the third flag-off, I was worried we would miss it as well. Fortunately, some people starting posing for photos at the starting point and this gave us the space we needed. We ran for it.

It was quite hard to run. There was always someone in front of you. The route was scenic though. Lots of  photo taking opportunities which created bottle necks. The giant head in the photo above is mine.

The organizers put a lot of thought into decorating the route with posters, banners, balloons and there was a cheer leading group at the bus interchange cheering the runners on. I saw two water breaks areas, one ambulance and a few traffic patrol officers.

Oooh, there was a bubble blowing machine too. The woman on the right wearing the fashion forward hanky on her wrist is me.

Once we hit the beach which is sort of where the bubble blowing machine was, I saw huge dark clouds and a few fat drops of rain. Some people came prepared with umbrellas and raincoats.

The rain started to become a drizzle but we saw the finish line and we sprinted forward and finished the race. It was 9am. How is the weather forecast so accurate? And yep, that's me in my fashion forward fanny pack. See how hubs positioned the Hello Kitty hair ribbon above my head? To be honest, it didn't feel like a 5km run. But I didn't care because it wasn't pleasant running and stopping and running and stopping.

We went to an area where the crew were giving out a bottled drink, a Pokka white grape sweet drink, a pack of Hello Kitty biscuits and a Hello Kitty magnet. I was almost given a second Hello Kitty magnet but I rejected it because one was enough for me. By then the rain was pouring and there was no where for us to go but to join the crowd in the text nearby. The tent was small and cramped with people. I was worried that as more runners came in it would become very uncomfortable. After finishing our sweet drink, hubs said we should walk elsewhere. We decided to walk back how we had done the run and try to find the Sentosa express station. At least we could find a way back to Vivocity. People were taking shelter in whatever spaces they could find. The rain became horrific right there and then. We stood under a tree - the only shelter around and hubs said it was dangerous. I thought we were already wet so we might as well walk in the rain. We got socking wet. It rained harder and harder. My shoes were wet. My socks were wet. My undies were wet. Luckily we had a ziplock bag to keep our phones.

We took the tram back to Vivocity and on the way we saw runners taking the tram to Sentosa. We were really puzzled about that because why go all the way to Sentosa when it's raining and there's very little shelter. Later we realised that they probably went to collect the magnets which TURNED OUT TO BE the finisher medals. 

This photo was taken on our way home. We had become less wet by then. 

Honestly, for us, it wasn't a bad experience. Walking in the rain wasn't that bad. We were really lucky to be in the early flag off. We read in the papers many people had bad experiences when collecting the finisher medals. See report here and here. There was chaos and some people didn't get their medals or drinks as they had run out. It's possible some people got more than what they were entitled to. I'm glad I didn't take the 2nd "magnet" offered. Otherwise I would have felt so bad.

Anyway, if you want to get hub's account of the run, you can go here to read it.