mardi, décembre 05, 2006 Standard Chartered Run 2006: 10km  ETA: Rank=3053finishing at chip time 1:29:56! One of the happy troubles of a busy life is going for a billion events and having to recover from them, leaving you with no time to write about anything that you've done or seen or experienced. After (1) finishing an exam on Monday night, (2) handling a children's camp from Tuesday to Friday, (3) attending a wedding plus social events after that (all of which I will blog about! Soon...), I (4) went for the 2006 Standard Chartered Marathon 2006. Not the 42km (I am not that ambitious), but the quarter marathon, i.e. the 10km run. The day started out very prettily - not too hot, not too cold, sun up but not blazing, lots of lovely wind. I met up with Priscilla who had my tag and number, pinned the number on, and then... bumped into my cousin, his wife and daughter (who refused to let me carry her, but then again I've only met her twice, and the other time was 2 years ago! No, we're not a close family.) The start time for the 42km was 6am, 21km at 630am, 10km men's at 7am, and finally my race, the women's 10km at 730am. Prior to the starting gun, the DJs made the usual ra-ra grrrrl power jokes, and played all sorts of girl-related tunes like Aqua's "Barbie Girl" - can you believe that the DJ actually told the crowd: "THAT'S RIGHT LADIES! ALL OF YOU ARE BARBIE GIRLS! LET ME HEAR ALL YOU BARBIES GO WOOOOO!" I, of course, rolled my eyes and wished that the gun would misfire and accidentally shoot him. (What?! I'm just sayin'...)  The gun indeed went off on the dot at at 7:30am, and we were off! And we ran and we ran and we ran. Or rather, I jogged and jogged and tried my best not to stop (hey, that rhymes!)With a quick prayer, the first km went by quite fast, but for some strange reason whose reason eludes my logic, the 2nd km was really looong, and the first drink station at the 3rd km mark could not come quick enough. And boy, was it a mess! But it's always like this at marathons - the mess is easy enough to clean up because the cups are large objects and can be easily raked up. They're biodegradable anyway, so the many cups which were mashed and mushed underfoot will wash away with the rain and ... uh, become one with mother nature quick enough. The 4th and 5th km went by with me asking myself "Why am I killing myself with this crazy idea?!" After that, I kind of got into a zone where I was just going forward. So praying while running (and stopping, and running, and stopping, and running, and stopping), I got to the 7km mark, which was the fringe of the CBD. And I kept going forward, forward, forward. Until the 9km mark, which was the cue for the final gasp towards the finish line.  So at 92mins or thereabouts, I completed my first ever 10km run. I've learned a few things along the way:1) Isotonic drinks Really Work. I always thought they were fake products manufactured to meet a fake need, but the 100 Plus did the job a whole lot better than Ice Mountain. 2) Music really helps. The next time I run, I'm making sure I have a good mix of rock and slow jams - alt rock for the hard bits, and slow jams for rests. And some mid-tempo stuff for cruising. 3) Praying while jogging, looking at the city skyline with the sun's rays creeping up on you and the sea breeze blowing in your hair is an awesome way to start the morning. 4) Random people cheering you along the way to the finish line really, really helps. You don't know them and they don't know you, but it really helps. Really. So whoever that bunch of people standing outside the Singapore Cricket Club holding StanChart air clappers - thank you very much. To people like Stan who wanted to be jio-ed for this event: I'm sorry, I'll jio next time around. I didn't think anyone would want to do it, but apparently 3 other people in my church did it, plus Mokster, J.Tao-E and Lijie also did it. With Tao-E doing the 21km! To xuan-xuan - I promise that I will eat bananas next year. Promise. [Standard Chartered Run 2006: 10km] |
0 Comments: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
