I can't believe the last time there was a Eastside Run was exactly 1 year ago. It used to be a once a month affairs but due to the packed race calendars the past year, somehow I have not been able to find a free day to slot this in on a more regular basis.
Anyway, I decided since there was an extra long weekend and being its anniversary, it was a good time to hold one. This time round, the route picked was a part trail part route covering 3 separate trails in the East. Invitations were send out via the sgrunners forum and Facebook. I had expected in view of the many runs over the weekend to have at most 15 - 20 pax but the numbers kept growing and growing and before I knew it, there were close to 50 respondents which was more than the 2 of us can handle. So last minutes I had to rope in buddies from Simei to help manage the group. Many thanks to Gary, Zco, Ming and AC. Especially the latter 2 as they still had a World Harmony Run to do in the afternoon.
We started off from Sun Plaza Park at about 7.20 am. The first trail was the "carpet" trail of Tampines Eco Green, in my opinion the best and most comfortable trail in Singapore, JB and some say Batam! Surprisingly, many of the runners have not been to this park even though a majority of them stay in the East.
Next trail was the Tampines Mountain Bike Park, a more familiar place for most of the runners. But of course they didn't bargain for a "water" obstacle. I had recced this place a few times prior to this and decided that the water course was more fun than the usual out and out trail. And it was hilarious to see the new runners to trails picking their way gingerly over the water. And some kind dude finally decided to help the ladies in distress and picked up some more rocks to help the ladies walk over the water. Who says chivalry is dead?
The final trail was the wild but scenic Tampines Quarry, a place that I believe was new to almost everybody. We had a group photo taken at the most scenic park of the quarry before proceeding up to the wild trails.
And wild trails it was, with tall grasses, mud and 2 fallen trees which had everybody climbing and crawling all over. Surprisingly, it appears that Nparks or some kind soul had trimmed a bit off the 2nd tree on Saturday afternoon and we could easily walk across.
Finally, after a fun and exhilarating 12km, we reached back Sun Plaza Park for a final group photo.
And with that, it was the end of another Eastside Run. Hopefully, it will not be the last one for this year. But whether there will be another this year will depend on the demand, the race schedule cos that will affect my ability to get pacers and whether I can hustle up new and interesting route instead of the usual Bedok Reservoir or East Coast Park.
Nice route.
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