Republic Run 2012

After a break of almost 2.5 years, I finally ran another 10km race. By a string of injuries and timing, I have for one reasons or another not signed up or ran any 10km since the F1 Nature Run in April 2010.

Anyway, with a very much reduced running mileage in recent months, I approached this Republic Run with a bit of wariness. Sure I told myself no time target but I would be lying if I said I won't be devastated if I run beyond 1 hour. So all I hope for was just to go below 60 minutes. The signs were good. In the past 2 10km runs in the neighbourhood, I had clocked about 56 mins but those runs are not races and anything can go wrong. The other positive was the weather was great after an afternoon of heavy rain.

We reached Republic Poly about 4.30pm. The race was supposed to be flagged off at 5.15 pm but somehow it got delayed till 5.40pm by which time the sun had came back out. What a bummer! The crowd wasn't too big. Probably about 3000 plus but there were some serious runners there. Some Kenyans who eventually came in winners as usual. Anne Qi was there as well. And everybody seems to be so serious doing warm up runs here and there. And I thought it was a charity run?

I did my own "warm up" when I walked back to the car to get my sun glass and ran back to the start point after that but the start was delayed considerably so that was kinda wasted. The race was eventually flagged off by the GOH, who apparently was the cause of the delay as he was late!

We ran out of Republic Poly into Woodlands Dr 91. There was only a one lane closure and as I had started almost right at the back, I had to run hard to be able to pick up the pace. But maybe because the crowd was small, soon the runners started to spread out and I was able to run without having to force my way through the crowd or having people breathing down my back. 

At about 1.8km, the Kid (ok he no longer a Kid) overtook me. He and a friend were taking part as well. That was the only time he was behind me. I wisely decided not to follow him and ran my own pace. I was surprised that I was doing about 5 mins pace. It certainly didn't feel that fast. But I knew I couldn't sustain this type of pace. I skipped the first water point at the entrance of Admiralty Waterfront Park. We were soon running along the waterfront where I was stationed just 2 weeks ago during the Banana Relay. This time I was running there. Too bad there was nobody there to take my pictures with the Johore coastline.

At 5km, I was just over 25 mins according to my watch. I knew I have to slow down and then I saw the slope in the park. That was it. I slowed down considerably. But at this point, I knew the sub 60 was in the bag. There was no way, short of a disaster, was I going to take more than 35 mins to do 5 km. But the number of slopes in this latter half of the route was daunting. Other than the slope in the park, there was a longer slope along Admiralty Road West. Which was fine as what goes up must come down but at the end of the road, we had to do an u-turn and face the slope all over again. If that wasn't bad enough, we went into the Admiralty Nature Park and did a short stretch on trail. Which was fine again except that the trail leads to a zig zag slope much like the one after Hort Park going up to Kent Ridge Park. But that was about it and we were back in Republic Poly and I crossed the finish line in I believe just over 53 minutes. This could be a PB as the other 2 races where I did faster than this were non-chip race (the Mizuno Wave Run in 2005 and 2008). Yes for those too young to remember, there was a time long ago when not every race comes with timing chip.

Got to wait for the official results for confirmation but whatever it is, not bad at all for an old fogey who have been slacking and taking it easy. These old legs still got some run left. Next up - Yellow Ribbon Run.