TNF 100 Singapore 2012

Jinx? Fated? 3 times bad luck? How do I ever start to describe this? How could I once again mess up a simple 25km run?

Ever since 2010 when I first did this event and although I finished it, I wasn't satisfied with the way I ran it and vowed to do it properly. So the following year, I trained hard, even formed a team to prepare for it but at the last minute, had to sit it out with a injury that forced me to halt running for a long time. So this year, although the long runs wasn't adequate, I felt fit and confident enough to finally be able to close this chapter of my running in good stead. Instead, just barely halfway into the race, I broke the year's injury free record and busted my ankle on a part of the trail that I had ran countless time and eventually had to DNF!

The day had started well enough. We reached MR bright and early to secure a car lot. Walked around, meet up with friends, took some pictures before we were flagged off at 8am. The earlier start compared to past years were warmly welcomed. We could at the very least avoid the hot noon sun.

North East Tampines Run 2012

Took part in my final 10k was m race for the year. It so funny. Just before this year, I have not ran any 10km race for a long long time and in the space of 4 months I have completed 3. But the only reason I signed up for this was that it was almost in my backyard. And it cost only $18. Cheap by local standard. So I wasn't expecting much from this. On the way to collect the race pack though, I was a bit worried about how "no frills" it was going to be. Race pack collection was only on 1 day and between 4pm to 9pm. I was like huh... don't tell me the response is so bad. I jokingly told the sidekick to expect aunties and uncles at the finishing line jotting down the runners' bib number for the race timing!

Imagine my surprise when we walked into the hall and saw the race pack collection setup.

It was easily one of the most "pro" looking I seen here locally! And my respect for it went up a notch further when we collected the goodie bag. It was bulging with contents.

And there were no usual useless discount vouchers for products and services which nobody ever uses. Instead, there were 2 tees including 1 Li-ning tee, a shoe bag, a can of isotonic drink, 2 towels and a race bib with timing chip!

I couldn't believe my eyes. I know the grassroot organisation got a lot of money but that much?

The good feeling continues on race day. There was a huge stage. Drinks including isotonic drinks and even bananas were readily available even before the race starts. There was even holding pen for the various timing including this one for those below 30 mins. Wow, either there are some very super elite runners taking part or the organiser are so confident of our local runners' ability!

Everything appears wonderful and perfect for a great race. Even the weather was great! And then the runners were flagged off behind this balloon arch. Unfortunately, very that was good about the race ended here. The first 50 metres or so was along this very narrow pavement through the small park. Luckily, the number of participants were not that great so it wasn't so bad.

Out onto Tampines St 83 and everybody just ran across the road even though there were no road closures and vehicles were travelling up and down. The runners should have kept right and cross the road at the junction but there were no barrier or marshal at St 83 to direct the runners down the road instead of crossing it.

The lack of road closures and marshals extended all the way along the whole race route. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to stop at any road crossings although I saw one group in front of me having to stop once. The problems continued. We were supposed to run towards Avenue 10 after crossing the overhead bridge outside Temasek Polytechnic. Of course some people ran across the road junction instead of crossing the bridge. The route lead us into Bedok Reservoir and out of it onto Avenue 1 outside Temasek Polytechnic before crossing the first overhead bridge along the road. This is the route as shown on the race website.

But because there were no marshal or directional signs within the reservoir, what everybody did was ran 1 round of the reservoir. This was the route as picked up by the GPS. Compare the difference! For us mortal runners, it didn't really make a great difference. The distance in fact came closer to 10km (9.8km on both me and the sidekick's watch whereas if running on the straight path of Bedok Reservoir Road and Tampines Ave 1, it will probably be a tad shorter. However, for some of the front runners, they ran an extra 2km to 3 km exiting the reservoir from the water pump side road. These resulted in favourites like Gary Goh, Mok Yin  Rong failing to finish within the 10! What a let down for them! And this has to take the record for the most number of runners who ran off course!

I think the problem was the lack of marshal at the Bedok Reservoir area. The runners turned into the carpark, ran along the reservoir and was supposed to run along the upper path instead of the lower dirt path but nobody guided the runners. Consequently, the runners missed the water point along this stretch as wellhe. So the smooth and good organising all went to pieces at the most critical part of the event - the running.

These are the 12 top 3 finishers in each category. Did they deserve the placing? Of course it is not their fault that the organiser screwed up but somehow, what's if...........

Timex Run Trainer

After considering almost every GPS watch available to replace the Garmin 110, my first option was the cool looking Motorola Motoactv. It is packed full of features and most important of all was available in Singapore. But in the end for one reason or another, I settled for a more time tested and reputable watch from an established watch company, Timex and not some pseudo gadget company.

After comparing the 3 models available from Timex, I settled for the Timex Run Trainer. The Timex Global Trainer is Timex's first GPS watch. A gigantic size watch also crammed full of features but  was simply too big for my liking. The latest Timex GPS watch is the Marathon GPS. This was Timex answer to the Garmin 210 and the low end GPS watch. The Run Trainer was right in between. And so it won me over with   the features, size and the pricing. 

Size

First the size. Compare it to the Garmin 110, it is not much bigger. In fact it looks better on my wrist than the Garmin 110. DC Rainmaker has a very nice photo comparison of the various GPS watch here.

Display Mode

Because of its size, it has very big display making  it very easy to read while on the run. This in effect makes up for the very dim indigo blue light that Times uses on its watches which is almost useless. Note the extra big characters in the middle row. This is double the size of the other rows. In fact, the watch can be customised to display 3 or 4 lines of data.

This is the 4 lines display layout. The text are visibly smaller but still quite readable during daylight. Apart from being able to display either 3 or 4 lines of data, Timex allowed for 3 pages of customisation with any one of them being the default display screen.

The setup for the display and in fact everything else can be done on the watch but since there are so many features, it is easier to do it on the Timex Device Agent software. This is the set up for my display.There is an mind boggling list of data that can be displayed that it took me a few tries before I settled on what I want and how to read them.  

Craze Ultra 100 Miles 2012

The crazy people at Running Guild decided to organise an ultra marathon. Not just any ultra marathon but a 100 milers. I can't imagine running 100 miles in hot humid Singapore. But apparently, a lot of people can and a few hundred people duly signed up for the various categories including 67 for the 100 miles, and the rest spilt between the 50 miles and the marathon distance.

The race was flagged off from MacRitchie Reservoir. Despite the darkness and the lack of transport facilities  the participants started turning up from 5 am to run in this aptly named Craze Ulta.

These folks flew in from Philipines just to do this. As if there isn't any ultra there.

The Malaysian contingent was nearly 30 strong if I am not wrong. There were also many other nationalities including another big group from the Indonesia.