expiration date 

i finally did my second 10k race: Sundown 2012. my first was last December, the SCMS 2011, which was a huge success for me. i ran faster than i thought i could, the race was pleasant and fun, made me wanted to do another race. which lead me to this Sundown.

i thought the Sundown Race would be perfect for me. the race started at 10:30PM. i always do my training close to midnight (since i have to wait until aina goes to bed), so i should be in my element for this race. and i’m pretty familiar with the race route, because i’ve cycled pass the same exact route a few times (the route we take whenever we cycle to the East Coast Park).

however, the race turned out to be harder than SCMS. there were waaay too many people squeezing into a small channels. supposedly there were about 20,000 people participating, in which almost 12,000 were running for the 10k race. you can see how crowded Nicoll Highway fields was that night…

we arrived at the MRT station 45 minutes before the race started, and met up with Shinta and Ario right away. the plan was: Shinta and i would run, while the hubbies took pictures. aina, who came along, was the cheerleader. unfortunately, we forgot to bring our camera. and aina was quite tired from the ballet performance she did this afternoon. so, Ario was the only who walked around and took pictures. ari had to babysit aina the whole time (that includes going to a different MRT station to find an available bathroom for aina and running around trying to catch the last train to get back to the race field).

the Angry Bunnies team :)

i had to go to the bathroom before the race started, and of course, the bathroom line was loooong. by the time we got to the starting line, we were placed waaay behind. it took us almost 10 minutes to reach the Starting Line from the gun sound.

picture from slesta’s flickr account

as usual, there were a lot of people walking. at the beginning of the race, where we were still on Nicoll Highway, it was fine. we had the whole road for us, so there were plenty of space for us to zigzag around people. but once the route turned to Kallang River Park, the path was soooo narrow, it was a big bottle-neck. it was weird because i thought i was running. but as a looked around, people around me were walking. so i was running that slow… and because the path was very narrow, there was not enough space to pass people.

it kept going like this even after we got out of the Park and continued at Geylang Road. it turned out that they didn’t close the road. they only blocked one lane. unfortunately, with 12,000 people running, that one lane became another bottleneck. so basically, i was exhausted from zigzagging around and trying to squeeze myself between people.

i wish they had given us more space. it was hard running shoulder-to-shoulder with other people.

anyways, shinta and i finished the race. my time was 1:12:58, 4 seconds longer than the SMCS 2011’s time. waaay below my target for this race. oh well, i didn’t expect the congestion. but still very happy for getting the medal :D

and stragely, with all the congestion, according to the graph given by the Sundown website, i’m still slightly faster on the 2nd part of the race. so it’s a good thing.