Passion Run in 90 minutes

And so we participated in our second running event of the year last Sunday, Passion Run. The first was the Zoo Run. Here’s a recap of what happened.

We really haven’t been exercising since the Zoo Run back in Feb 09. Yes, Dear2 went for a few runs with her colleagues after work. But Dear1 really didn’t have any training whatsoever. And so the 2 yaya papaya Dears went into the 10km Passion Run without conditioning.

We arrived in time for the 8am flag off. The interesting thing for us this time was the “new”  RFID tag. It’s not a durable looking champion chip which we had to return after the run. It’s not the strip of wire which was fastened to the runner bib and make the whole damn thing so heavy. This time round, it is just a strip of plastic sheet about 10cm in length that is embedded with some flat wires and electronics on one side. Just loop this flexible plastic piece around our shoe lace and stick it in place with the sticker provided. It’s that easy. The best thing is, we didn’t have to remove and return it, which is a good thing becos we didn’t really fancy the idea of bending down and untying our shoe laces after a long run. Thumbs up for new running technology. (Side note: Maybe we were suppose to return it but then nobody told us…)

We didn’t have any baggage with us so I can’t say anything about the baggage counter. *Hint* Why didn’t we have any baggage? Where had we left our things? Hmm…

Run started and so we ran. Not too bad, we were in good condition up to 4km and we overtook many ppl along the way. Yeah. We didn’t have any breakfast in the morning and so we started feeling the emptiness about then. And this was the quote from Dear1:

I’m running out of bananas.

We passed the u-turn point and began looking out for our first water stop. We had passed a few water points earlier on but didn’t need to stop at that time. But the next water point turned out to be very very far away. We were expecting a water point before the 5km mark, but there was none. By this time we were feeling rather tired and slowing down alot. Surely that must be a water point soon after not having one for so long. Wrong. In the blink of an eye, we were at the 6km mark and still no water point. We didn’t stop running as we didn’t want to. We were determined to only stop when we get to a water point. But we had already dropped a lot of pace.

Finally, the next water point was spotted shortly after 6km. Many runners stopped to pick up a drink after such a long water point drought. We continued walking for some time until we passed 7km. And then we suddenly spotted photographers under a tree ambushing the tired runners. We didn’t want to be caught walking on camera and so we started running again. What a vain motivation. :P

Some distance down, we slowed to a walk yet again at a water point. 8km mark had passed. After replenishing ourselves, we mustered whatever bananas (read energy) we had remaining and made a dash for the finish. Dear2 switched to her race day mode and started overtaking fellow runners. She liked to concentrate on overtaking other runners to take her mind off the running. I just followed closely behind, keeping up with the pace, and taking over the pacing every once in a while when Dear2 started falling back.

Somehow, the finish line always seemed so far away on the home stretch. We passed Bedok jetty and spotted the finish line in a distance. Mind over body. We kicked up the pace and made for the finish. Yes! We completed our first 10km run of the year! (Well… technically, Zoo Run was also 10km 6.2km – thanks zaimie for pointing it out – but we were there more for the animals. :P) And Dear2 counted overtaking 55 runners on our final sprint. Yeah!

Immediately after crossing the finish line, we were ushered to collect our goodie bags. There was no queue and we got our goodie bags in zero time. Good goodie bag organization. Thumbs up again.

We walked around the carnival area, drank 2 cans of 100Plus each, and took a relaxing walk along the beach before heading home. We were pleased with the organization of the run and would recommend to anyone who wants to participate in a casual running event. We were also pleased with ourselves as we had the mental perseverance to give it our best for this run. The timing wasn’t anything great but it showed us that we still can do it and we need to get in shape so that we can do even better. 加油！

-Dear1