Out of Shape Run

Went to bed past midnight last night after watching Stephen Chow's "唐伯虎点秋香" on TV. Woke up five hours later, drank a glass of milk and ate a banana, and then left the house for Raffles Place to meet with Hedgehog. The two of us had arranged to run on our own that morning, while the ladies were involved in the women's-only Shape Run whose start/end points were near the Esplanade.

Hedgehog and I had initially planned to dump our bags at the California Fitness gym at Raffles Place at 6.45 am, and then go for our run. But to our dismay, we discovered that the gym would not be open until 8 am. So we headed instead for the Esplanade, where the SgRunners female 5-km and 10-km competitors and the male supporters contingent were gathered. Leaving our bags under the watchful eye of Cosmic_Wind, Hedgehog and I set off at 7.25 am and did a short 5 min warm-up run to the Merlion and then Collyer Quay, where we did further stretching.

And then we were off for our Out of Shape Run proper. We went from Collyer Quay towards Marina Park (doing what I would call four "Mickey Mouse ear" loops), and then back to the Esplanade. We covered the first 10-km in reasonably okay timing (about 55 min), but I really lost my momentum subsequently. It was very difficult to complete the next 8 km...not sure if that was due to my fatigue or lack of fluid...But I'm grateful that Hedgehog was there to encourage me to complete the distance.

In the end, we covered 18.3 km in about 1 hr 47 mins.

By the time we got back to the Esplanade, quite a number of SgRunners ladies had already completed the Shape Run. Congrats to BabyMonster who came in 6th overall, and to Run3 who was 23rd out of some 2,500 (I think) participants! VT won the top position with an impressive timing of 39+ min for 10 km (!). The other female participants from SgRunners were as follows: Brokie, Divey (hope her ITB problem gets better soon), Bee (who happened to run 24-km the previous day), Yuujinya, Tooty, Bikerchic, Penguin, Roonz, Kickjazz, GoldenRetriever, Charmane3, leh-lio girl, bodycompact, JunieTang, Violet, Daisiki, Charlotte, Meteor and many more. Ripley did not run, but helped out as a photographer. :) Among the pom-pom boys were Superboy, Dasher, Teelee (thanks for the Teelee Mobile!), cfred (who claimed his World Cup prize from Bee), Kops21, Dream, Shutehelup, Roentgen, Tiwazz, Alvo, Cheow12, IMD, Cosmic_Wind and Nemo.

I think everyone had great fun today, both the competitors and the supporters. The Shape Run goodie bag - which looked like a big handbag - was packed to the brim with stuff like a Nike towel, a Nike water bottle, bottles of vitamins and other supplements, skincare and haircare products, magazines, instant coffee, a loaf of bread, a can of Pocari Sweat, and more. I'm sure the participants liked the goodie bag very much...the whole package was worth more than the $15 registration fee for the event :)

Some of us went to Marina Square foodcourt for lunch... I had a bowl of Minipot noodles, and was treated to a bowl of cheng teng by Roentgen (thanks, bro!). By about 12 noon, I was growing sleepy again...and started nodding off at the table.

So I headed straight for home after the crowd dispersed. Napped on the bus, and luckily I didn't miss any stops. When I got home, I slept for another 3 hours, then woke up to clear some office emails. :P Still had quite a lot of work to finish, so I'm going to give tonight's dinner with TLR and company a miss :(