30km Sunday Run From Telok Blangah To Marina South/Kallang

This morning's Sunday Run was decided hastily on Friday evening, when Chairman wanted to do it from SAFRA Mt. Faber. We needed a change from the usual MacRitchie Route, and this was the best time to try out a new, long route.

We started off at 7.10am from the SAFRA Clubhouse, and immediately headed towards the direction of The Esplanade. I did a rought count, and there were about 22 of us. We had a large number of lady runners today, and it may be due to the promise of a scenic run along the way. The pace was nice and easy, and even our usual speedster, Derrick was keeping to the relatively slow pace for him. We ere bunched together for much of the distance, chatting, updating one another of recent run events. Of course some still cannot resist talking about work, but mostly it was about what a nice day it was. Very soon, we found ourselves near Fullerton Hotel, where we took a short break, and a number of us were admiring the nice sports cars parked outside the hotel. At that point, we have covered 1hr 12min of actual running time, accounting for stoppages at traffic junctions as well. That would be approximately 12km based on a 6min/km pace, which was about that.

After the quick break, we moved along Shenton Way towards Marina South. We remarked that for many of us, it was the first time running along Shenton Way as a group, and ot was fun. Very soon, we turned into Marina South, and we saw many footballers occupying the large fields along the Marina. They looked at us, and we looked back, both groups impressed with each other's dedication and passion to be doing what we are doing on a early Sunday morning.

I basically couldn't remember the sequence of route and events, and all I remember was that we very soon reached the end of the Marina, where we could see the sea. It was beautiful, and we wished we could have been there earlier to see the sunrise. However, most of the babes with us remarked that they prefer sunsets...and so we moved on. We ran along the edge of the waters, across parts of the woods, and came to this small tourist park where we had our second water point. According to my HRM, we ran for 1hr 21min, and that would be about 13km. just before that, we took 2 nice group photos with the CBD as the backdrop....COOL.

The Mount Faber Running Group

At this juncture, Chairman announced that we might run all the way to Kallang River on the way back, and maybe take public transport home. That will be about another 10km. We could not decide, and continued to run the second half. We cut through a wasteland, part of the Marina to be developed into the second business hub. We soon reached the water point at Esplanade (this is the usual water point we come to whenever we do our night runs to the Esplanade). We had already ran 1hr 45min at that point, not bad, all the runners still looking fresh. The ladies were all feeling good too. At this point, we formed into mini groups and broke off from there....one group headed back to ClubHouse (about 7km more), another ran towards the Nicholl bridge (adding another 4km to the entire route....I took this with Goola and Derrick) and another group ran all the way to Kallang River/Stadium?...then they did something special. I ran along with Goola (I hope I got her name right) along a nice, flat, scenic path. There were many joggers and runners, and a lot of them looked like serious runners too. We reached the Nicholl Bridge, toop a quick sip of our water bottles, and turned. On the return, we bumped into Derek and the group of Colleen, Evelyn and Tong Ling. We exchanged a few words, and off Goola and myself went towards the toilets at Esplanade. This was where we met up with Derek, and from here, it was all the way back to the Clubhouse. This last part was quite uneventful with the exception of us spotting this sexy babe walking by. Derrick and myself had weak knees for short while. We regained composure, and made it through the remaining distance back to Clubhouse. The traffic had grown heavy along the roads by then, and we had to make the usual traffic junction stops. We reached the ClubHouse with my HRM registering 2hr 55min of actual running time (though the physical time had already exceeded by at least 3.5hrs). Based on that, we estimate the distance to be 30-odd km. I was satisfied with the distance, and I attribute that to the good weather we had. Already, I am looking forward to our next long, Slow Sunday Run. The grapevine has it that it could be to Kent Ridge Park, or even to Sentosa Island itself.

Distance Ran:30km___Time:3hr___Pace:5:51min/km
Average HR:143bpm____Max HR:168bpm____KCal:1930