RUN.EAT.GOSSIP

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Mizuno Wave Walk a Jog 2007

Supposed to do the Mizuno Wave Run - first time it was being held at Bedok Reservoir. The last race held there was the Real Run Terrain Race and back than I wondered how they could fit it so many runners on such a small track but they did and it was a nice run than. Hopefully, this time round it will be the same. Plus with the rain - maybe a lot of people won't turn up:)

It rained the whole of yesterday and the night and the place was going to be soggy but it was home ground for me and I didn't really care - just go and enjoy. Since there was no timing taken, I didn't expect much - just go run and collect my goodie bag at the end. I targeted to finish in 1:10:00. No PB or anything like that.

M didn't run today as she was still recovering from a cold. Reached Temasek at about 7.10am and was lucky enough to drive around and found a small corner to tuck the car in. The race didn't start until about 7.40 am becos the VIP came late. They had to do a show of it - put the whole lot of them into a mini bus and drove the bus up to the track. That was the first sign of trouble - the organiser obviously was more interested in the public relations than the running.

I was probably only about 10 metres behind the balloon arch but that was bad enough.

Race started
1.09 - crossed the start line. Very normal. No big deal
5.40 - walked/jogged to first gate of TP. What to do:(
8.56 - stucked in the 2nd bottleneck for so long. Finally managed to reach the Bedok Reservoir trail. What the %^^&*! Nearly 9 minutes for a distance of less than 400metres!
From there on, it was skipped avoid skipped as I tried to avoid stepping into the puddles of water and being hit by the splash created by other runners and also avoid being hit by other runners also skipping here and there.
31.33 - Finally exit Bedok Reservoir. Never ran so slow there before. Oh well there's always a first time. Another bottle neck. This time on the flyover above the longkang.
37.16 - 5 km. Got to run the balance 5km in under 23 minutes if I want to finish below 1 hour. Forget it - just stick to my 1:10 target. From Bedok Reservor Road, it was slightly easier to run as I choose to run on the road.
47.48 - 7 km. Hmm didn't realise I had started to run that fast. 2km in 10 minutes?
52.48 - 8 km. Can't be. Something wrong with the distance marker. Quite sure I was running not faster than 6 minutes pace.
58:00 - 9 km. Back on the trail. Back to skipping and jumping.
1.02.35 - Crossed the balloon arch. Er I thought the end point was supposed to be back at Temasek Poly? M and Kelly shouted to me. Not yet finish. Run some more! What the *%$$! Where was the end. This seems like it since everybody is walking up and down.
1.03.08 - The clock. This must be it. And yah, I think the distance was less than 10km - at most 9.5km. What a bladdy screw up.

Queued up another 1+ hour to get the goodie bag. 3 queues snaking all the way to one lousy entrance. Karen managed to get a Maxim magazine from the other event being held concurrently by Aljunied GRC. A walk a jog. With the way this event was organised - they should have just combine the 2 events together and call it Mizuno Wave Walk a Jog and don't waste the serious runners time!

On the plus side - there was adequate water points and t-shirt didn't run out. Even got Milo - first time I managed to drink Milo at a Singapore race (but actually the Milo is for the other event).

Will I join again? Why not if the goodie bag is worthwhile and I just want to do a morning jog.

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