A Tale Of Two Runs

It was the New Balance Real Run 2009 and it was a fantastic run last Sunday at the Changi Exhibition Centre where I clocked 1 hr 43 mins to clear the tri-terrain 15km run. The sea breeze early in the morning was most refreshing and quality of the air was good. Ironically, it was the shady Casuarina trees path that proved to be one of the hot spots as the neatly lined-up trees blocked the wind and we were like running through a tunnel of still air.

I am surprised how people were saying how fast my timing was as the folks at SGRunners.com were all claiming to clock around 1 hr 30 mins. Then again, the bar (no pun intended) of the CowBoyBar is certainly set much lower.

Truth to be told, I believe I could have easily clocked a better timing if not for the 2 factors.

• This is the first time I am running the New Balance Real Run and I have no idea what the route is like and hence I was very conservative in my speed as I kept worrying about running out of steam before I reach the finish line.
  
• Given what happened to the previous Mizuno Wave Run where I did run out of steam at the 10km mark, I was not sure if I am trained up to tackle 15km.

Well apparently, I was wrong on both counts. I shall return next year and will clock a better time. 1 hr 30 mins perhaps?

And speaking of the Mizuno Wave Run 2009, I clocked the 16km run in 2 hrs 18 mins.

Anyway, the Mizuno Wave Run sucks monkey balls.

I cannot believe HOW BADLY ORGANISED it was.

• First, the road marshal at the YioChuKang-Casuarina junction send us the wrong way. By right, we should have just made a simple right turn and run along the road. Instead the errant road marshal sent us up the Peirce Reservoir hill which is an a uphill-then-downhill route of 2 additional km.
  
  Many of us ran out of steam as we did not "budget" this climb into our run plan.
  
• The toll it took to run that extra hill was evident as the water points right after the hill ran out very early. I didn't get any water for 2 subsequent water points after I cleared the hill.
  
  In fact, all that was left at the 2nd water point was buckets of ice but no water. I had no choice but to just grab two handfuls of ice cubes and run with them in my hands.
  
• The last point that really pissed me off was the final stretch from Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 back to Nanyang Polytechnic where they were unable to get the permit from the Traffic Police to seal off the road for running. We ended up having to stop at almost every traffic light. What kind of a stupid run is this if running have to start stop start stop?

I am still ok with the first two obstacles where extra distance is just merely an extra challenge and I could always get a water belt (which I did for the New Balance Real Run) to tackle the water shortage situation.

But not sealing off race route is just simply unacceptable. It is miserable to run and it is also a safety risk to the runners.

I will not return to the Mizuno Wave Run. Other than the very nice backpack, everything else sucks monkey balls.

- Voxeros