KL Marathon 2010

Woke up to find that it had rained and weather was great! Hopefully it will last throughout the run. The cough was still there, the legs were a bit sore from the past 2 days of walking throughout KL but spirit was high. No tourist runner today. It was going to be a serious run. Applied the Jump Start, the T-Max and for good measure – a new weapon in my run SBO – put on a pair of Zoots Compression Calf Sleeve and away we went.

Met up with 2 sgrunners, Mahesh and Irene at the hotel lobby, proceeded to Winsin Hotel to met up with Taz and Shut and we reached the start ground a good 30 minutes before the start. The crowd wasn’t so big and so we were able to walk up to about 30 metres before the start line before we stopped. Not elite no need to squeeze to the front.

Start off cautiously. In fact too cautious. Took over 7 minutes to cover the 1st Km. The idea was to run a paced race and hopefully finish in under 2 hours. The weather continues to hold. It was cooling, chilling at some points but the route itself was hell.

Not Again!

3 more days to go before KL marathon and *)#^%$ I am fighting 2 battles against a flu/cold bug and a new problem on the leg!

Things seem to be all rosy after the Passion Run. All the previous problems seem to have resolved itself and I was so looking forward to my first oversea run this year.

And now it seems there is a flu bug going around. Many of my colleagues are down. I have a sore throat, a cough and a very itchy nose. Damn! And to make it worse, the left leg has develop a new problem. There is a lump of hard muscle(?) just on top of the calf and below the knee joint. And it hurts when I go down staircase or get up from a sitting position! Double damn!

Looks like I gonna be a tourist runner on Sunday!

Simple Run?

Come to think of it, this is my first time participating in a sgrunners's running event. The previous time I was either kapoing around or missing in action.

Anyway, those koonky people called it a simple run. Now I really don't understand why cause it was pretty complicated. First, we had to wear the event tee (another first for me), then we had to remove our watches and whatever timing devices including phones. Then we were only told the route on race day and finally we had to guess the time we will take to complete the race and then try to run and finish as close to the guessed time as possible. Huh? sound complicated right? Ha ha ha.

But heck, apparently a lot of other don't think so and decided to take part.

Photo by Kelly

And yes, it was fun. Which is how all races should be. Fun for everybody. Well done to the organisers!

Sze Mak Chaim Races

'Sze Mak Chaim'  is local lingo (Hokkien) for "eye cyst or sty'. There is this local grandmother's tale or urban legend that if one were to peep or see someone naked, he/she will get a cyst or sty. I suppose the purpose of this urban legend is so that children do not turn into peeping tom.

Now if this grandmother's tale is true and these 2 races were to ever be held in Singapore, there will be plenty of people going around with a cyst in the eye and the eye doctors will have a field day!

Ing Bay to Breakers 12km Race

World Naked Bike Rides

But of course the eye popping question will be - will there be anybody here in sg who will dare to take part in it?

What don't kill you...........

A friend like to quote: "What don't kill you makes you stronger".

Me? I look at it this way:

Nike Sportsband - RIP???

Last Saturday, the Nike Sportsband failed to communicate with the sensor. Is it dead? Not even a year. And after only 61 runs and a total of 519.2km as logged on it.

One Stop Shop?????

I opened the newspaper this morning and almost choked on my roti.

The SAA is proposing that it be made the sanctioning body for all road races here in Singapore. This came about after complaints were made about the poor organisation of the Sundown Marathon and other races. Steven Yeo, the CEO “believes that if this is done, policies to ensure a runner has a reasonably good race experience would be set in place”. 

Yah like real! Mr Loh Lin Kok, the President of the SAA has previously been reported as calling all the other races here “Mickey mouse races”. So why will the SAA wants to get involved in “Mickey mouse race”?

The only reason I can think of is that the SAA is dead broke or going to be soon with the continued withholding of funds from the SSC and this is a good ploy to suck money from the race organizers. Other than enriching the coffers of the SAA, I don’t think anybody else will benefit from it.

If this happens, race organizers will have to pay a sanction fee which I can guarantee won’t be cheap. Consequently, this will translate into higher registration fees. Also, the red tapes associated with getting the approval will increase and some of the smaller races like the Mizuno Wave, the Newton etc will probably stop doing it depriving runners of more choices.

But if the SAA really gets it wish and is the sanctioning body for all races, I am sure the current slew of runs will come to a abrupt stop as frankly, I don't think SAA is capable of doing any thing right and all the applications will be stuck in somebody office waiting for a rubber stamp that may never come.

X-Trail Challenge 2010

Another event where I instead of participating I was there to kaypoh. That's seem to be the norm nowadays but even if I want to, wouldn't have been able to take part since this was for teens. Actually kena driver again otherwise could have been sound asleep in bed.

This was a small little event in the Western part of Singapore at the Chinese Garden for teenager. And since I couldn't do, the Princess was my proxy! Ha ha ha. She managed to rope in another 7 school mates to form 4 teams.

The event consists of a series of activities starting with a run which included some 'obstacles' such as jumping over sticks and running up the Pagoda. This was followed by kayaking round the lake and scooping up some plastic bottles.

Two of her schoolmates came in 10th. Unfortunately, they could have fare better instead I guess due to poor marshalling, they went the wrong direction!

Racer, Runner, Plodder and Walker

This post started the ball rolling:

And some are not really sincere runners. I'm not against walking. (I do walk and jog when I'm tired too). But walking after 1-2km for 21km run is quite ridiculous. (Considering the quite large number of them who actually started walking when we barely pass the start line)

And the choruses grew and grew:

• more and more people are joining such events without the right attitude and god knows what. feels like they will all come together at the end of year again. what to do.
• I agree there are more and more runners that do not train and run FM. One of my friend do not even run 2km for trainig but signing up for SC FM
• anyway was kinda pissed off to see peeps walking for full marathon after 7km, and by 10km almost e entire pack is walking, serve no motivation at ALL
• Completely agree with you. There were even runners starting to walk just 2 or 3 k into the marathon .....No problems with marathon runners walking in between, that's part of the sport when you feel fatigue, but please not just a few k into the race
• Hey, this is a marathon. But saw so many people walking and blocking the runners, chit-chat?? Then next year better change the event to Sundown-rise Big walk 2011!
• Those that stand very infront of the start line and run fast once start and then start walking at 6k mark till finished, they better go back and train harder first. If not don't sign up again, give the slot to other needed runner.

Inevitably, after every race, there is a lot of complains about the walkers. But somehow, this time round for the Sundown Marathon, there seemed to be even more and more vocal one at that. Is it really because there are more walkers? Even me, in my previous post had commented about the walkers.

Of course, those in the walking camp soon jump in to defend their right to walk: