Somehow, I've got lazy and tired of updating my blog halfway through BKK trip and many things had happened since then. In summary, here are the few things that had happened the past 2.5 months and I dont intend to do any backdated blog.
1) P and I went for a staycation at Shangri La Rasa Sentosa and did a Justice League Run end of August
2) Singapore held its General Election on 11th September and it was the first time I was presiding officer (glory glory public service but tiring!)
3) A week into September, Singapore fall into the longest haze season that I can ever remember. Till date, it had affected us for 7 weeks and counting! For the first time in my life, school closure was announced on 25th September and PSI had been going up and down, up and down for as long as I can remember.
4) As a result of the above point, my yearly peak season for races turned into a depressing season of missed and canceled races. Races that I've signed up and suffered from the haze included Yellow Ribbon Prison Run, Garfield Run and I missed two other races due to a whooping cough (still suffering from it right now) on top of the haze season. Bummer!
Anyway, I was glad that I only signed up for the 13km run in the TNF100, I was deliberately between 25km and 13km and decided to just go for the shortest distance as it was my first trail run. I've seen many reviews for the past editions, runners enjoyed the challenging race but the it was getting quite pricey to register.
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| The racepack |
My friend W picked up the race pack for me as she was in the area and we met up for dinner after that. The shoe bag quality was not too bad but obviously its quite a sexist race as the item which took up the most space were two Men's Health magazine. For an expensive race, the racepack was quite simple and nothing more than those magazines and pack of GU chews.
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| My hydration bag |
More than 10 years ago, when I was still a trainer at the Sea Sports Club (now Water Venture), we were given a hydration bag with a bladder for one of the trainers' night. It is a useful gift but not so useful for us when we were only kayaking. After 10 years, I finally saved the bag from the dust at home and it became a reliable asset for me during this trail race. One of the regulations for the race was that participants had to carry our own hydration. Even though a 500ml hand held bottle would suffice for a 13km race, I decided that I prefer to carry more water on my back instead of holding a bottle in my hand. As the bladder that came with the backpack had eroded away over the years, I threw it away and went out to Causeway Point on the eve of the race to get a new one. Unfortunately, the only shop that used to sell the bladder/reservoir did not have one as it's out of stock. I regretted not getting prepared earlier but did not want to make my way to town just to get one, so I looked for all the bottles I have at home to contain the water that I would carry (the blue Water Day bottle was from one of the other racepacks). It seemed quite silly to be putting bottles into the hydration bag instead of a proper bladder, but at least its better than not having one.
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| At the Start Line |
I'm glad that TNF100 is one of the few rare races which had a later start time at 9am, so I did not have to wake up that early and I could also take a bus to Macritchie reservoir. There were many TNF runners hanging around the amenities centre when I reached, but I lost my way when I tried to head to the Start Line. This is the second time I thought I could just follow a group of fellow runners to get to the race site (first time was SDM) but it was yet another case of blind leading the blind. When we reached the entrance of the trail where people normally start their run, we realised it was not the Start Line, in fact the Start Line was at the other side of the amenities centre, so I quickly hurried over. I was quite surprised when I saw that there were not many people taking part in this category of the race, it could be due to the steep price or the haze, the crowd was much smaller compared to other races.
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| A rare selfie at the Start Point |
(Didnt finish this blog post but still decided to post it when I re-read it 4 years later in 2019)
