Performance Series Race #1

Hello May!

Earlier this year hubs and I signed up for a 5-run race - The Performance Series. Each race will be held at different parts of Singapore and a medal is given after each race. If you put all the 5 medals together, they form the island Singapore. As always, I signed up for the 5km run while hubs signed up for the 10km run.

This morning we woke up at 6am to travel to the north eastern part of Singapore for the first run. It was held at Punggol Waterway and the 10km runners get to run across Coney Island via a bridge. So sad I never got to do it.

We had to take a taxi to Punggol because to get there by train we would have to change a couple of train lines and then get on a light rail train. That's why we don't go to Punggol. It's like travelling to another country. You would think getting a taxi early in the morning would be easy. But this is Singapore where taxi drivers love to hide from customers. We ended up using Grab Taxi...

While in the taxi we saw the sunrise and I got really excited because I haven't seen the sunrise for decades. Where I live, the tall buildings block the sunrise.

For a while I got obsessed with chasing the sun.

I guess the scenic attraction of this run is the waterway (it's just a stream of water) and Coney Island (which you remember I didn't get to set foot on).

Before picture, all clean and dry.

Before picture, face not yet red. I didn't wear the Orange is the new Black runner's tee because I had tried it out before and I almost had heatstroke. Instead I opted to wear my very cooling Puma tee and shorts. I paired it with my Adidas shoes. Don't worry, I read that Puma and Adidas sort of buried the hatchet years ago.

My 5km flag off was supposed to be 8am. But it was late. The MC said we were waiting for a VIP who wanted to join us in the race to put on his shoes/gear. I was thinking, how long does it take to put on your gear? Ordinarily I wouldn't have minded waiting a couple of minutes. But it was hot and muggy and very crowded because the lane was small and the latecomers (10km runners with poor runner's etiquette) kept pushing their way through to the start line thinking they would be allowed to go through. They were stopped. So some of us (me) were plastered together. Finally the VIP showed up and did his handshaking thing with a few people. Then a photo taking. But he had not put on his bib so we waited some more. First safety pin, second safety pin... Grr. Finally the flag-off at 8:17am.

I was very happy with the actual run. I did my usual slow in the beginning and faster at the end thing. Most of the runners were faster than me which is normal. But there were no bottle necks and I never had to resort to walking.

The only thing that annoyed me was a kid. Yep, this boy (see image above). He was obviously doing it wrong. He kept drinking water from a bottle every 100m. Then he would sprint ahead, elbowing his way forward, darting in and out. He would get tired and walked. Another swig from the bottle and the madness continued. Because I kept catching up with him, he would keep elbowing me out of the way and this got so tiresome. Eventually, I managed to outrun him forever.

My timing was not bad: 38:50 min for 5.3km. I don't have a photo of me finishing because I finished earlier than hubs!

We got Lucozade instead of 100+. Lucozade is very, very sweet and not nice to drink. It gave me a tiny headache. There were no bananas either.

After pic. Face red.

After pic. Dripping with sweat. He continued to drip with sweat all the way home, an hour later. (p.s. he's sucking in his stomach)

Our first run in 2016.

1 medal down. 4 more to go.

p.s. We took a LRT mini train to transfer to the MRT train and in the LRT mini train I saw this warning sign: The power rails on both sides of the tracks carry high voltage. When evacuating, do not touch power rails.

Happy to report we did not have to evacuate.