Saturday, May 10, 2008

Sundown Familiarization Night Run (30km)

There were many runners this Friday, gathered at C4 for our last round of night familiarization run. It was the complicated Siglap-Bedok-Tampines-PasirRis park connectors where many got lost during the previous night run. Many familiar runners were present - Jancy & Vincent, Kayano, Stardust, Ultra, Anthony, DO, Eddie, Teck Hou, Kumaran etc. Everyone was in high spirits.

We set off around 830am. Again, my aim for the run was very simple - painfree completion. I was tentative and hesitant to test my hips to withstand 30km. The Skins capri felt very comfortable and I started with a good pace. Eddie was suppose to run with me tonight. We ran alongside until Bedok Park big-toilet area. The front guys were already there waiting for the slower runners. I wanted to continue running while my legs felt warmed up & no discomfort. So a few of us headed off first towards Bedok Reservoir. There were 5 of us - Kumaran, Eddie, Vanda, myself and a guy whom I did not know. I led them through the big, dark carpark to Tampines PCN. We met Teck Hou on his return run at the junction outside Downtown East. We finally reached the u-turn point at the mosque in about 1:46h.

On our way back, we bumped into the rest of the runners near Downtown East. They were running together as a big group. Eddie and the other guy stopped at Mac for a drink while Kumaran, Vanda and I stopped much later at the Esso petrol kisok along Tampines. Soon Eddie & the guy caught up with us. The run back through Bedok PCN was the most demoralizing to me - 2 bridges, rolling shopes. I stopped to stretch a couple of times, calves were threatening to cramp up. Bought a Pocari from Cheers at Kembagan Station, such a life saver! But had no place to hold the coins change, and had to trouble Vanda to safekeep them for me. Oops. Finally made it to Siglap PCN. Alber and Ultra had also caught up by then. They were fast despite my 1-2km headstart! We ran and ran and finally cleared the last 1.5km back to C4.

Happiness because my hips felt ok, only the normal soreness after a long run and not the injury pain feeling! I was driven to complete the run to see if the hips were fine. Happy that I could honestly declare this run as relatively pain-free! :)

We washed up at the public shower area. It was like the good old camping days, 4 ladies chatting and laughing while standing under the communal shower taps. We drove to Yong He Dou Jiang for supper refuel. The shop had moved to a bigger location, but unfortunately the quality & standard had fallen. Considering how hungry we were after a long night run, the food was not even impressive. I was more sleepy than hungry. Reached home in a thunderstorm and managed to crawl into bed only around 4am.

Love my bod, love my hips, love my SKINS. :)

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