First Run of 2006

This morning, I crept out of bed at 5:45 am, leaving my flu behind, and had a quick breakfast. I was out of the house by 6:20 am, and reached the running track at SMU at 6:55 am. Balasing was already there, doing his stretching. Before long, Cokiee, Littlefoot, Cheow12 and Violet came as well. Tiwazz was a bit late, but since he's the organiser for today's run, we let him off the hook :)

We ran along Evans Road, then turned left into Bukit Timah Road and continued chugging along until Coronation Plaza, where Chyarose was waiting for us. Then the whole lot of us continued along Bukit Timah Road - doing a short hill training along Second Avenue - and then turned left into Sixth Avenue. We emerged a while later at Holland Road. Next, we headed westwards until we reached the Farrer Road/Holland Road intersection. Violet, Cheow12, Cokiee and I were slightly faster, so we crossed the intersection first. Then, while they continued westwards along Holland Road, I decided to wait near the intersection for Balasing, Littlefoot, Tiwazz and Chyrose to catch up. But they never did...because they stealthily did a left turn onto Farrer Road instead. :P

After waiting for some time, I decided to run off on my own towards the Botanic Gardens. Once in the gardens - very familiar terrain to me - I navigated my way to the Visitors Centre, and exited onto Evans Road. A couple of minutes later, I was back at SMU where the others had already gathered, and where I also happened to bump into Seal. What a coincidence :) In total, I covered 11.5 km, but took a slow 1 hr 30 min. But that's ok. It's my first run in almost two months, and I hadn't even expected to go past 10 km.

The group of us runners went to Food Haven for breakfast, and chatted about dieting, running equipment and Fear Factor. I discovered that Cokiee is such a treasure trove of knowledge about nutrition. Later on after breakfast, Balasing, Tiwazz, Chyarose and I walked to Serene Centre, where we ordered ice float and floats. It was our mini-farewell party to send off Chyarose, who would be departing for the UK for further studies in a week's time. After that, Tiwazz, Balasing and I took the bus down to Anchorpoint and Queensway Shopping Centre to look at the boardgames and sports equipment on sale. When I got home, I checked Dasher's blog for some advice on how to use Google Earth to plot today's route :)

On the whole, it has been a splendid day today :)