I am a Metronome

Another back-to-back training weekend, albeit a shorter one. There were surprisingly very few runners this morning. I reached Safra at 720am, the lobby was empty and so was the carpark! I thought the runners had left, but it turned out that there were only a handful of us - Freddy, Ricci, Jimmy, Trevor, Yong, Lai Chee, Alber and myself. All such fast runners (except me lah)! There was also a young chap who came today for the first time. We set off, and the fast ones were soon a couple of hundred km ahead. I would be the sweeper again today. Yong and Alber ran and chatted slightly ahead of me. Yong needed no sweeping, he was so fast at his age, very inspiring.

The weather was very humid this morning, I was drinking a lot from my new Nathan toy. I was going to try and survive on plain water and no gel for as long as I could. I ran at a constant pace. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. So consistent I felt like a metronome! Tick-tock-tick-tock. Flashback to childhood piano playing days, with the metronome going tick-tick-tick-TING in the background. :)

I lost Yong and Alber at the Nicoll Highway. They were behind me after going for a toilet break, and somehow did not cross the junction at Raffles Blvd. I waited at the end of Nicoll bridge before running back to try and find them. I spotted them on the other side of the bridge and motioned for them to take the underpass over. We were using a new route today, Tg Rhu to Fort Rd & ECP B1, instead of the usual Mountbatten Rd. That was my training route in the past, when I trained for marathons before joining Safra. I led them through Indoor Stadium to Tg Rhu and out towards Fort Rd. Deja vu. I had not been on that route for about 1yr. Yong commented that my pace was still very constant. Haha yes, not a metronome for nothing. But maybe I should set this metronome to a higher speed ticktickticktick instead. As we wre running out along Tg Rhu, Lai Chee and Freddy had already u-turned and on their return run in the opposite direction. We reached ECP B1 carpark in about 1:45h, and saw Ricci, Jimmy, and Trevor just turning around. They were orientating the new boy.

I met my friend, Yihui, at the toilet! Surprise! She was there to run at ECP too. After a water break, I set off with Yong and Alber. We decided to take the Mountbatten Rd back and went to buy drinks at the petrol kiosks. Took a few sips of Pocari Sweat - hmmm.... that stuff was quite refreshing. Pressing on. Still no urge for power gel. Good. After 18km, Yong had powered up and went ahead. We lost him around Nicoll Highway. I suggested to Alber to take the Kallang detour to compensate for not returning by Tg Rhu. From Kallang Dragon Boat Association, we looped to Geyland/ ICA, following the dreaded segment of Stanchart marathon to Crawford Lane and back to Esplanade Park. Made the mistake of entering the park because the place was under renovation and we missed the only exit out to Marina Promenade. Which meant hitting a dead end and having to backtrack to the exit. I was reminded again of how I disliked running through the park. Not fainting from lack of power gel yet. There was a nice wind blowing through the park, making the segment more bearable. I started humming to myself for distraction, and psyching myself to go farther without power gel. Hmmm.... I would need a wider repertoire of songs to last 84km!

Exiting onto Raffles Blvd, we ran past the newly opened Singapore Flyer. Was it my eyes playing parallex error trick on me, or was the flyer spinning slowly? The capsules seemed to be moving towards the ground ever so slightly. Mental note to myself - maybe I should try to get tickets for a ride. By now, the wind was giving way to an overcast sky. Soon, little droplets of rain fell. We stopped at the Esplanade Mall for a water refill, when the clouds opened up. Totally. It was a torrential downpour. Luckily we escaped the rain in time. Unluckily though, the run was disrupted. Had $10 on me, tried to get loose change to take a bus, but the shops were not opened yet. No choice, hopped onto a cab back to Safra. Everyone else had returned by then.

Today's achievement - managed 3h with only 6 sips of Pocari, water and no gel! Yes! (So why was I still buying so many gels and drinks if I was trying not to use them? Haha....)