Keep on running

Its a super long weeekend for me as last Friday was Children's Day (special privilege for all primary school teachers) and tomorrow its off-in-lieu for Hari Raya Haji. Waking up at 5.30am, I joined the Running Dept peeps for their first SCMS run-with-pacers training on Saturday, I was excited as training runs at MBS-GBTB is something new for me and I was looking forward to train on a new route. 

I joined the slowest group of pacers with the 5.30h marathon timing and it was comfortable for me at first, we ran along MBS for the first 2-3km then went towards GBTB and ran a big loop around it. The MBS part was familiar as many race routes had us passing this part, but running along the outer perimeter of GBTB was something new for me. For the first loop of 8km, I was able to keep pace with the group but notably my first and only marathon timing last year was almost 7h, I felt strained to keep pace with the group after the 10km point. I stopped for a toilet break at MBS when we were heading towards GBTB and totally lost the group after that. I did not want my lsd to just end at 10km that day as I'm only 3 weeks away from newton challenge and I have a lot of mileage to catch up with. From the previous week's Straits Times Run in the Hub experience, I know that I'm still not mentally/physically prepared for the coming newton challenge or SCMS. Therefore, I pushed myself to finish that loop on my own. I was so glad that hydration station and helpers were around to give out drinks shortly after the MBS stretch, the 100 plus really tasted so heavenly down my throat. I did not take the outer loop of GBTB as I was not familiar with the route, but just ran along the normal pathway towards the barrage, I met the other guys after I finished the gigantic hilly slope on my own, rested a bit while waiting for them and then headed back. According to my Ipod nano, I did 14.5km that day as I took a shortcut during the second loop. Before taking the train back, I went to 7-11 at Bayfront Station to get myself a bottle of 100plus and almost downed everything in one long gulp. Woohoo.. 

I was not satisfied with my performance that day but I was glad that I pushed myself further than the previous training run of 12km. I hope that next weekend I can do at least 18km/21km so that I'm one step closer to my target. 

(Photo courtesy of Running Department)