New Balance Real Run 2012

Haven't take part in this event for the past 3 years and wasn't going to this year as well although this has traditionally been one of my favourite race. But ever since they moved the race from Sentosa to Changi, it has lost its glamour and uniqueness. The 3-in-1, road, trail, sand still attracts a lot of interest but the long boring stretch along Changi Coastal Road and the long run in the finish is a real put down.

Nevertheless, I dragged my butt out of bed on Sunday to go down to take some photos. As per the norm in Singapore, races are super unfriendly to supporters. The roads are closed to vehicles from an ugodly hour, there are no place to park cars, and the race catered buses are for runners only. Even when I thought I tried to park further away, the carpark at the next nearest place at the Coconut Grove is closed to all but the ambulance. Sighed.........

Anyway, I managed to walk to the beach and positioned myself there. There was no way I was going to walk another 4km to the race site. Had some time to kill. Ate my breakfast and waited for the runners to appear.

The first lot was the increasingly common sighted Kenyans. Seriously I wonder why these people bother to travel all the way here to take part in these small events when the prize money is so small. And I heard the money is pooled and shared among the whole squad!

Then the bulk of the 10km came. There were too many of them and I soon gave up trying to snap individuals, choosing to just mechanically snap away. Not much of a challenge but hopefully participants who see their faces in the Running Shots facebook album or here will appreciate it.

Although the 10km runners were flagged off later, the timing of the flagged off resulted in the main body of the 21km running right smack into the slower 10km runners. Poor them. Having to struggle on the sand was bad enough but having to weave through the runners as well. Also because of this, I was not able to take many pictures of the faster 21km runners as they well sandwiched between all the 10km runners.

Here are the photos.

Photos can also be found on Running Shots Facebook page where there are more photos taken by friend, Marcus Lim.