18km Sunday run at MacRitchie

Had my usual sunday run with the SAFRA Running Club members this morning. I slept late and awoke to the alarm with only 3.5hrs of sleep. Feeling a little dizzy, had a good cup of coffee and a 5 bites of a PowerBar.

I have not had a run for 2 days, and my legs were feeling lethargic. I met up with the SAFRA people at 6.45am, meeting Wong and Foo first. After about a group of 12 had gathered, we started slowly at 7am, towards the Northern Route. I ran a quick 1st lap through the x-country portion, following closely behind Jimmy Chow. Reached the SICC road in about 17min. At this point, Foo came forward to lake the lead up the series of slopes along SICC, and turning left into the Golf Course along the reservoir. We reached the 1st toilet point in about 30mins. There, we rested and waited for about 10mins for the rest of the group to come in.

We then carried on, along the nice up/down road towards Old Upper Thomson Rd, now with Wong taking the lead. We reached the pump house in about 40min. We waited for about 5min, and moved down along the Old Upper Thomson Rd. We reached the end of the road in 58min, and took an immediate U-turn back. Some members of the group went ahead towards the Seletar/Mandai Rd toilet point.

We ran back up, and moved along the road towards Pierce Reservoir, and reached the Pierce toilet point in 1hr21min. I refilled my fuel belt bottles, and waited for Foo and Adam to come in. As I waited with Wong, we observed there were lots of monkeys around, and they were ready to pounce on humans who might be carrying food with them. We also saw a lot of cyclists on that stretch of the road, and Wong remarked that there were a lot of uncles doing recreational biking nowadays.

In the last stretch of about 4km back to MacRitchie, we picked up the pace, and again Wong led. We ran for another 23min along Thomson Road to reach the drawbridge at MacRitchie in a total journey time of 1hr45min.

Having rested for 2 days, this was a good run for me, though the last 5km was a little trying. I was very satisfied with how my new fuel belt performed. Once I reached back, I immediately rushed back home for a quick shower to go back to MacRitchie for my second adventure of the day, a trek with another group of friends at MacRitchie.

Distance Ran:18km XC___Time:1hr45min___Pace:5:47min/km
Average HR:154bpm___Max HR:175bpm___KCal:1330