Great Eastern Pacesetters 30 km

Race Day. Got up at 4 am, washed up, drank 2 small glasses of milk and ate some bread. Put on my running gear, and headed downstairs at 4:45 am to join the rest at the hotel lobby before boarding the chartered bus at 5am to get to Lake Garden where the startline for the Great Eastern Pacesetters 30 km race was.

I saw many familiar faces there, including a whole group from Mt Faber SAFRA Running Club, such as Ong. , Chairman. , CheeryRunner. , Ronnie. , Chua. , Alan Chao. , Eng Hwa. , etc. :) The race started promptly at 6 am. It was still very dark at flag-off so I had to take my shades off. There was an upslope right at the beginning, and then undulating terrain thereafter. Slopes, after slopes, after slopes. We ran slopes in total darkness (literally!) along some sections, slopes past terraced houses and high-rise buildings, slopes leading to underpasses and flyovers, slopes, slopes and more slopes. For the first part of the race, I kept pretty good pace with SV and Stazla. But as much as I loved running slopes, I could feel the terrain gradually wearing me down.

When it was almost 1 hour 45 min into the race, I started to slow down my pace significantly. I felt too thirsty, and too tired. The water points were supposed to be 4-km apart, and I didn't bring along my fuelbelt. Since there were no distance markers - or at least I didn't see any - and I wasn't wearing my footpod, it was impossible to tell how far I had gone after the last water-point. Hoping for the next water-point to gloriously emerge from behind an upslope was like searching for an oasis in the desert. :P

When Bose overtook me, he encouraged me and said that the turning point was just a kilometre ahead. That was good news to hear, but my legs would not respond to my orders at that point. All my eyes - and brain - could see was another long upslope...

Finally, I reached the turning point. The race had already gone on for almost 2 hours. To my despair, the person at the drink station said that I had only covered 15 km. To qualify for a finisher's medal, I had to complete the 30-km race under 3 hr 30 min. At this rate, I was headed for failure... :( But I doubted the accuracy of the information given to me, so I asked a road marshaller further down the route. He told me I had covered 16 km. Not much of a morale booster either... (It was only much later that I realised that both of them had given me the inaccurate information...the turning point was actually at the 20-km point, thereabouts...)

But I was determined to finish the race, medal or not. My legs were like lead and my throat was on fire. I fought the urge to vomit (because I had swallowed two packets of Powergel within minutes of each other, with insufficient liquid to aquify and dilute both their contents). I had to succumb to long bouts of walking in between short bursts of running.

One by one, I got overtaken by familiar faces who were gracious and generous in their encouragement, such as Hohorunner and Roentgen. And thanks to them, I kept on going - slow, but nevertheless inching forward.

Almost 2 hr 40 min into the race, a elderly and thin runner came alongside me and said, "Young man, don't give up. Just 4 more km to go. You can do it." That was music to my ears. It gave me hope that the earlier two blokes were wrong in their distance estimation, and that I could still finish the race in time.

In the end, I crossed the finish line with a timing of 3 hr 14 min, with Kickjazz and Ripley taking my finishing pictures. I was so happy despite the fatigue. It was an incredible accomplishment, and I'm proud of myself for finishing the race :) I downed three cups of ice-cold Milo, two cups of Powerbar drinks and one bowl of cereal with milk at the refreshment point. Then I went on to cheer the remaining runners.

After the race, I took a cab back to Coronade Hotel with LaoKaYu, Ripley and Run3, showered, checked-out the hotel room, had lunch with LCPSimongoh007, Changxing, Joao, Andy, SassyRunner and cfred, stopped for some coffee at San Francisco Coffee with Andy, Babumouse and Ronnie, then walked over to Pasar Rakyat to catch a coach back home.

This is one of the tougher runs that I have ever tried, and I am tempted to come back again next year to give it another shot :)