June 2, 2010

adidas Sundown Marathon 2010

2'41'41''. Woo hoo!!! My new PB.


Kak June, thanks for your advice. I did drink the ORS before the race and for the first time in my running history, I didn't suffer any cramps at all during the run. Anyway, the route was all flat and straight. If ada naik turun bukit haruslah tak achieve that PB.



 I ran someone else's bib, that explained why I was Fazlina

Prior to the event, we had some dispute at the shuttle bus station. The organizer overlooked the most important factor of the logistics. No public transport to the venue, plus most of the locals also didn't know where the heck was this Changi Exhibition Centre sebab jauh kat hujung dunia, participants would definitely opt for the shuttle bus.  They should charter more buses for the runners.

 the longgggg queue

When we arrived at Pasir Ris MRT station by 7.40pm, the queue was already very long I couldn't see where the head was. An hour passed by and we were still far from the head. The half marathon would start in 20 minutes time. I saw some of the runners already jumped into cabs. We still waited patiently in the queue. There are thousands more behind us. So I thought if we're gonna be late, at least we're gonna be late together. haha. Half an hour passed by and finally, we made it to the front. But to our shock, the organizer told us the bus driver ain't driving as they've been driving since afternoon and they told us to wait for the 10-12am shuttle bus. WTF!!! True, according to the race booklet the shuttle bus for the half marathoners was from 6-8pm. But with the high volumes of participants and the 10 minutes interval between the buses, what did you expect? The logistics was totally a failure.

Not only were there shortage of buses, the organizer also told us the cut off time for the half marathoners to start the race was at 9.30pm. Another WTF!! Anyway, we managed to get on the bus at 9.15pm. 15 minutes more to the cut off time. Since the race already started at 9pm, the road leading to the venue was closed so we had no choice but walked about 3-4km to the starting line. Not bad for a warm up session eh?

Luckily the organizer still let us run, maybe they've realized their mistake and acknowledged that there were a lot more stranded participants at the shuttle bus station. So we started running at 10.30pm. 1 hour and a half late than other participants. But anyway, it didn't matter as the official timing would be based on our timing chip.

Other than the shuttle bus letdown, the race was all good. Even though we started late, it wasn't a lonely run. When it comes to marathons, Singaporeans are an eager bunch. 20000 people participated for this event yo! And for this year's Standard Chartered marathon in December, I heard 22000 runners already signed up for it.

My sister took part in the full marathon category. The flag off was at 11.59pm so when her friends and I finished our race we didn't sleep the whole night waiting for her. Anyway, we couldn't go back either as the shuttle bus stopped at 12.45am and would only resumed at 5.15am. So to kill the time, the organizers had movie marathons for us. 

outdoor cinema

women's winner for ultra-marathon. she ran 84km in 8 hours! O_o

the gang

why I looked tall here? ;p

beat the sunrise


OK. Time to go back.

2 comments:

June Malik said...

woot woot rara, way to go and you improved by leaps and bounds, proud of you girl !!! glad the tip worked for you, it came from the ultra mom haza initially heehe ..enjoy your moment, see you at scklm ya!! kisses

rara said...

thanx again for the tips kak june.. i still have a lot to learn from all the marathon sifus :D