It was the first time that we were doing an official Safra Sunday run at MR. We typically stayed within the vicinity of the clubhouse or east coast, mostly on roads. Hence it was a nice variation from the usual tarmac grind to run on trail this morning. Well, not totally trail. More than half the distance was on tarmac, except for the stretches inside Macritchie and Upper Pierce Reservoir.
I reached the carpark at 715am and got a lot immediately. It was not crowded this morning. We had quite a good turnout of runners today. Everyone seemed bright and chirpy. I wore my Salomon trail shoes, thinking that I should clock some mileage in them since I would be using them for the Sabah race. Not sure if it was a good decision or not since the trail section this morning was rather short. Firstly the shoes were too tight. I stopped twice to adjust the laces, by which time I could not see the runners ahead. Ah heck, I would just run on my own since I was going to extend the distance anyway.
We ran through the Northern Trail and along the golf course into Upp Pierce (water break), 1 loop round the Aircon Road, out the main gate and onto Old Upp Thomson Road (OUTR) towards Lower Pierce (water break). At critical junctions, Ricci stopped to give directions and waited for the back runners - Alber, Peter and I - but he sped off quickly after we caught up. Anthony was slightly in front of me. He was going slow today and keeping Bev company. At the mid-section of OUTR, there was a police sign along the road indicating the scene of a fatal car accident which made headlines a few days ago. I would loathe to run or cycle there at night!
My legs felt tired from pounding on tarmac in trail shoes. Whenever possible, I ran on the grass curbs next to the pavements. When I reached the petrol kiosk at Lower Pierce, the rest were ready to u-turn and head back. Alber wanted to clock some mileage for the HK Marathon, so we backtracked and ran out to the main Upp Thomson Road at the prata shop (instead of OUTR).
I was going slowly behind when I saw Alber stopping by a tree ahead and staring intently at it. Uh oh.... that was not a good sign. Possibly some weird insect sighting, and I am not a fan of creepies. True enough, the guy had spotted a baby tree python coiled sluggishly on a branch. He motioned for me to take a closer look. He's got to be kidding! No way was I going near that thing. (At this point, I wanted to post a wiki link to what a tree python looked like, but I could not bear having slimy, scaly snake pictures staring at me from my laptop, and immediately closed the webpage.) I climbed over the pavement barricade and went onto the road instead. While Alber continued looking at the green coil, I ran off quickly, reminded of my last running encounter with a similar snake near my house. I waited for him at the slip road to OUTR.
It was a slow and tedious run back to MR. I ate a pack of Caramel-flavoured powergel at the 2h mark. I bought it during my last trip to USA, and it tasted good - like caramel. Pity it was non-caffeinated. We went back into the Aircon road, and I was on a jog-walk rhythm by then. I made Alber do an extra set since he was the one who wanted more mileage. :) We headed back to MR via the trails towards Rifle Range. Thankfully it was trail terrain from that point onwards. Springy, cushiony trails. Alber did not quite appreciate the trails. He was wearing his Mizuno Wave Precision - rather soft for trails.
What is a trail run without some mud and sloshing?! The inside trails were wet and soaked from the heavy rain yesterday. Some sections were squishy yellow mud, the skid-inducing kind. It was fun side-stepping the mud baths and hopping over stone debris. At least it took my mind off the cannot-make-it run. As we reached the fitness station, Alber went straight to the main road (aka the MR Ultra route), while I ran left into the trail. Only 2.5km left! Perservering, a few more steps.... finally the end of the trail was in sight! Whew.
It was past 1130am when I reached the carpark. Net run time ~3.30h. Exact distance unknown, it was probably 30km or slightly less. Drank 2 bottles of water and ate 1 powergel. Well, at least the run worked off the reunion feasting I had last night. :)
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