I-Run at the Singapore River

Supposed to accompany a colleague join the I-Run at the Singapore River as part of his training for the JPMorgan Chase. Last minute he fly aeroplane. So was caught in a dilemma. Go home and run there, join the sgrunners CBD run or go for the I-Run alone. Didn't fancy going home to run after lugging all the gear down. Also didn't want to suffer LT's KTS so in the end decided to go for a nice jog down the Singapore River with the I-Runners.

This being my first time joining the run, I didn't know what to expect. There was a big crowd already gathered when I reached there at around 6.25pm. These people are real organised. There was a registration desk where all the runners had to sign in, a signboard, ambulance and cold 100-plus. The friendly guy even remembered that I had emailed him a query yesterday when I went up to register. Met a familiar face from my very first working place! By the time the warm up session started, there was about 50 over runners!

There was a warm up session before the runners split into 3 groups to run 7km, 5km and 3km distances around the Singapore River. I joined the 7 km group. After the briefing on the route, still not very sure what with so many turns and u-turns so decided to follow the lead runner. Not too sure what type of speed these people does but didn't expect it to be very fast since it was a group run. How wrong was I!

The lead runner who also led the warm up was pretty fast. Even the old guy in front of me was fast! Barely 1km into the run and I was struggling to keep sight of the 4 front runners. In the end, I ran the fastest time ever since mid 2006 doing a 5min pace (if the distance is accurate)! The route starts from UOB, up to Clark Quay till Reading Bridge before turning back to the Esplanade and looping there twice + running around Esplanade Park.

There was a big timer for runners to check their timing at the end of the run and the 100+ and of course the usual cool down. The running time of every runners are recorded ostensibly so that the runners can keep track of their progress. How thoughtful. This should be a good training run for my colleagues training for the JPMorgan Chase. Now if I can only convince them to join in!