Eastside Deepavali Run

It has been a long time since we had an Eastside Run. The last one was in January this year on New Year Day. From time to time, friends have asked about it but with so many races throughout the year, there wasn't really any suitable weekend to do this and anyway, with so many more "official" group runs like IMD Running, Team Fatbird, I reckoned the interest in regional run has waned. And beside, it has not been easy to find interesting routes that will interest the runners.

But somehow, on Deepavali day itself, there opens a small window of opportunity. Most of the runners had started to taper for the coming marathon and it was a weekday and not a weekend so it will not clash with any races. So we ie TLR the big boss of Sgrunners and me decided it was as good as any to revive the Eastside Run.

And I am delighted at the response. I had hoped for no more than 30 runners but close to 70 turned up with some coming all the way from Yishun, Jurong and Punngol. 

As usual, we tried to incorporate some element of fun into the run by making the route more interesting and running into some "new territory". The only issue was the many semi-wild dogs which I had encountered previously but thankfully, with the big number of us, we vastly outnumbered the dogs and ran through without any incident.

A picture review of the run in this video


Hopefully we don't have to wait another 11 months for the next run.

The GREAT Eastern Women Run 2012

Once again, another weekend, another race. But again I am not racing but kapoing. Not that I didn’t want to do this race but last I checked, I lacked the physical attributes to qualify for it. I did told the sidekick I can wear a skirt and run but she said don’t foul up the place with people’s vomit. Wondered what she meant by that? Anyway, the GREAT Eastern Women Run 2012 return for its fourth edition with a little bit of variation.

Previously, Great Eastern Life Assurance was the title sponsor of the event. This mean they paid for the rights to have the event named after that and that was basically it. They do not have “absolute” control over the rest of the details and organization. What happened this year, according to a little bird, was that Great Eastern decided that they wanted to increase the distance from the usual 10km to a half marathon but the event organizer did not want to. So there was a divorce and Great Eastern went ahead and appointed their own organizer to organize the event for them.

And what a right move to do! Just like last year was a year when every race seems to be hitting the pits with its poor organization, this year, every race organizer appears to be trying to outdo each other with great organization and generous freebies. I have not done many races this year but from feedbacks from friends and the chatter on the web, it was a good year for racing. I guess with so many events chasing the same pool of runners, the organizer had no choice but to up the stakes. The Yellow Ribbon as usual set the standard with its well planned route and carnival; the Newton provided goodies galore and even the TNF 100 got its acts right again. But the GREAT Eastern Women Run 2012 must in my opinion beat all of these hands down and could possibly be the best for this year if the SCMS maintained its poor route planning.

Noticed the GREAT? In capital letters? It was that GREAT!

When was there ever a race when the 3 categories of runners do not meet each other during the race? The 21k women had a different end route from the 10k and 5k women. There were no human jam and no congestion except for maybe the slower 10km runners who has to merge with the faster 5km runners.

When was there a race where there is a “Powder Room” to freshen up after the race? The Newton race last week gave a cold towel to each runner to freshen up. The GE Women provided a covered tent with mirror and toiletries for the ladies to clean up!





A participant cleaning her face at the "Powder Room"

Nowadays, free food at the end of the race appears to be a norm. There were muffins, fruits and drinks at the Yellow Ribbon Run. At the Newton, there were free soya pudding, biscuits, fruits and ice cream. GE Women had muffin, fruits, ice cream and drinks and hotdog in a bun!

The non-participants were not forgotten. There was a “playground” for kids and adults under the stand of the Floating Platform. The baggage deposit area was also under the stand which means the runners did not have to queue up in the sun to collect their bags.

Most local races offer token cash prizes and product vouchers. GE Women had $10,000.00 for its first prize for the Elite category and $3,500.00 for the Open Category. Even the winner in the 10k Women Master’s category get $1,000.00. Except for the Gold Label SCMS, which other race in town offers such great cash prizes? 

So the GE Women had it all. Great race experience, great scenic route and value for money. All perfect except for one small blemish.

  

They inexplicably went to create an “Elite” category and invited 15 runners; both foreign and local to come under this category. The “Elite” champion gets to take home the $10,000.00 whereas the 2 runner up get $5,000.00 and $2,000.00 respectively. Then there is the Open category opened to the rest of the field. The prize money is $3,000.00, $1,500.00 and $1,000.00. The “Elite” runners also get to start 2 minutes ahead of the rest of the field.

  

These are the top 3 results in each category:

  

1- 1:17:58; 2 – 1:18:28; 3 – 1:22:41

1- 1:19:35; 2 – 1:24:02; 3 – 1:24:28

  

So what’s the problem? Unfortunately, the results on the top row are those of the 3 winners in the Open Category whereas the results in the bottom row are those of the “Elite” winners. It was no wonder that the Kenyan woman who came in top in the Open wasn’t smiling when she receive her prize. One certainly wondered how these “Elites” were selected. Take the local runners who were “Elites”. There were at least 3 local runners who had finishing time that were faster than the 10th place “Elite” runner.

The "Elite" Champion

Do they really need to have an “Elite” category? Wouldn’t they just invite their sponsored runners and let everybody have a go at winning the top prizes?

 Other than this, I think looking at the contended face of the women; it was definitely a GREAT race. Too bad we guys still don’t get it!

Photos availabe at http://facebook/runningshots.sg

Special Offer from BGO Ecoshop

The people from BGO Ecoshop has kindly offered readers a 10% discount for the purchase of "superfood" from them.

Now your chance to stock up on Chia seeds.

Just need to insert in the discount code "eat2run"

Terms & conditions:
1. This discount coupon is only applicable to items in the Superfoods category, excluding Bundle Deals.
2. This discount coupon is valid till 30 Nov 2012.
3. Courier shipping charge of $6.00 applicable for net orders below S$50.

Payment can be made by interbank transfer or Paypal/credit card. 

Please contact Chewy Loh if you have further queries.

Can't find your Race Photo? Part 1

One of the most eagerly awaited items after a race; in addition to the chip timing; is the race photos. In the past, the race photography scene was monopolized by the likes of Marathon photo and Sports PhotoX and to get one photo, a runner has to pay an arm and a leg for a hard copy. Then came the advent of the digital camera and photo hosting website and suddenly you can download them for free. The difficult part was sussing out where which photographer wannabe host his photos and whether they allow public access. Popular sites were Flickr; Picasa Web and Photobucket and the now defunct Multipy. But looking for one own photo through these websites was a pain in the posterior as there could be thousands of photos and most of these sites load photos at incredibly slow speed.

But then came Facebook with its super uber friendly photo hosting. A bit low resolution but the advantage with Facebook was everybody was free to tag photos and so if a friends see another’s friend photos, he can tag it and volia, no search required. The picture pops up in a notification from Facebook! How cool is that? So how come everybody else photo is there except yours?

Yes of the freaking thousand photos in all the friends’ albums in Facebook, your photo is not one of them! What happened? Why oh why? 

As a a runner and photo enthusiast who occasionally takes photographs at races, let me try to explain what happens and what makes a photographer takes a particular runner and not another.

A professional at work in front of the start line

Firstly, there are photographers and there are photographers. 

There are the professional employed by the event organizer or the official photo site. If the former, don’t hope to see your pictures. They are reserve for the eyes of the organizer only. Even if they do publish photos, it will only be a selected few – the flag off, the champions finisher and the prize presentation. If the latter, they will usually be stationed at the finishing line. Usually, they are seated comfortably right in front of the barriers. Their job is to take as many photo as possible but if there are thousand of participants, chances are they miss a few hundreds here and there. And don’t forget, you still got to pay an arm and a leg for the photo if you can find it. Good thing is their photo can come with official timing, logo, and a thousand and one format. Just remember the arm and leg.

A photo enthu with his bag of gadgets

Next you have the photo enthusiast. How to spot them? They are the one armed to the teeth with super duper long zoom lens, tripod and all sort of gadgets. They take photo selectively but whatever they take, be assured it is quality stuff. Only problem is, where to find their photos? One good source is photo forum like Clubsnap where they post their best photos for what they call “critique”. From there, a few click here and there and you should be able to find out where these photographers host the rest of the pictures. But don’t expect a lot. These photographers have high standard and anything that don’t meet their expectation will never see the light of day.

Then you have the runners themselves. Armed with a compact camera, they will run and take photographs of their friends, or pose at various memorial or scenic points along the route like the distance marker, drink stations, great view of the sea, the Esplanade; the MBS etc etc. But most of their pictures will be posed pictures of friends at the start and finish grounds. Running pictures if any, inevitably are not well taken and general not in focus. Not the type of photos that is going to show you with your determined face racing the guy next to you or your cheery face as you overtake that sweet lady.

Last but not least there is the photo cum runner enthusiast. People like the famous Malaysian guy, Mr Tey, who travels all over the region to take photographs of his running friends. These photographers, whose passion is running and photography see taking photographs of friends at races as a way of supporting friends. How to spot these people? They are usually stationed at strategic points along the route and armed with a camera fitted with a long lens (not the super duper long type). They may move from point to point; may even join in the run with the camera in hand! They are not very selective and try to take as many photographs as possible; and generally take fairly competent pictures. Photos are usually uploaded on to Facebook within days of the event and opened to the public to tag. There will usually be a few albums worth per photographers which will get numerous “likes” and comments and tag. 

And everybody will be happy except you cos you still can’t find your freaking photo.

To be cont’d