Johor-Singapore 2nd Link Bridge Run

At 3:15 am this morning, I crawled out of bed, washed up, consumed a banana and a glass of milk with Banana Nut Crunch cereal, grabbed my running gear and made my way out of the house to catch a taxi to City Harvest Church. I arrived there at 4:15 am. Chin Seng and Chee Keong showed up not long after. At 4:45 am, Chee Kong arrived with his car, and we all hopped in and headed for Tuas for the Johor-Singapore 2nd Link Bridge Run.

It was a short but eventful car-ride. Just prior to arriving at the Singapore Immigration, we realised that we had forgotten to top up the vehicle's petrol to the 2/3 mark and so had to U-turn to find a petrol station. Later on, after clearing the Malaysian customs, we couldn't find any place along the poorly lit (i.e. dark) highway to make a U-turn to reach the Petronas parking lots on the opposite side of the highway. In the end, we almost drove up to Gelang Patah before we were able to make a U-turn back to the parking area. After we had finally gotten out of the car and registered ourselves with the race organisers, we moved to the Runners' Assembly area where we met Chris Ang and his two buddies.

Since Chee Keong had a late night yesterday, helping out his brother-in-law with some computer repair work, and like me, Chee Kong had spent much of the previous night searching high and low for his passport, we reckoned it would be unwise to push ourselves too hard for this half-marathon. Indeed, between the three of us, we had slept a total of 7 seven hours. :) Together with Chris Ang, we decided to run as a group and cover the 21 km leisurely.

The race began at about 6:45 am, and off we went, keeping to a 5:30 min/km to 6 min/km pace. The four of us chatted merrily as we went along, discussing miscellaneous matters including which person in front of us to overtake next and which was the next competitive running event that we would be taking part in. ;P

We stuck together for about 14 km, at which point, I began to feel rather fatigued. My strides got smaller and smaller. I persuaded Chee Kong and Chris Ang to continue running ahead at their faster pace, while Chee Keong offered to keep me company for the remaining 7 km. Chee Keong was a great source of encouragement, spurring me on and providing me with advice on how to conserve energy even as I was running. I finished the half-marathon in 2 hours 1 minute and 40 seconds.

My former DSTA colleagues and I after our 2nd Link Bridge Run

My 2nd Link Bridge Run Bib

My stats for this run...

Time: 2 hr 01 min 40 sec
Distance: 20.53 km
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 211/180
Average Pace: 5 min 55 sec / km
Calories Expended: 1662 kcal