New Balance Real Run 2005

It was a restless weekend for me. I didn't sleep well, due to quite a few late night activities I've had. This morning was the New Balance Real Run 2005. I was anticipating to do my first real run at sentosa, as well as to meet up with members of the SgRunners.com, a new running community that I am a part off. I woke up at about 3.30am, and for some strange reason could not get back to sleep. I logged on to read some email, as well as get the latest from the running forums. Had a good breakfast of cereal with coffee, and headed for sentosa.

Race Gear with bib MV0173

I reached the Visitor Arrival Carpark at about 7.10am and shortly bumped into TLR and the gang. There was Fd, philip, penguin, Alvo and Meteor. This was the first time I had met them, and it was refreshing for me to touch a very young group of runners. I had a banana in between, and soon more SgRunners came along, renohtaram, balasing, carine, BrokenRunner, taz, kay, all of whom I have had the chance to hear from in the SgRunners forum. I was happy to collect the homemade SgRunners car sticker from TLR. I will safe-keep and use it later as it is limited edition. At about 7.30am, we made our way to the start point near Cinemania, and over there was joined by DO, kops21, cyberkinetic, tiwazz, yankeeII, skyvers, menmoch, and quite a few more. I also had some time to talk to the SAFRA Runners Rita, TLH, etc. We then had our SgRunners tattoo from cyberkinetic, and took our much anticipated group photo with the new SgRunners banner....Cool! The weather was by no means cool, as it was already quite HOT by then.

The SgRunners.com running group @ NB Real Run 2005

We were flagged off at about 8.40am, slightly earlier. There was a bunch up at the front, and I probably took some time to get to the start point, cross the championchip mats, and started my stopwatch. I planned to run easy for the 1st 3km, then catch up a bit to hit about 23+min by the 5km mark, so I have some time to manouvre the 1.6km beach and sand portion which will certainly rob me of some time. The first 2km was bunched up, and I had problems manouvreing the crowd, most of which were running slower than expected (I guess they too were conserving for the sand portion). I found more space as we progressed, especially when slopes came up. At about the 5km mark, I had passed many runners, some of whom were familiar faces. I could see 1 or 2 SAFRA Runners (with their distinctive luminous green-yellow running gear) in front.

The sand portion was quite ok today, though the sand had been markedly disturbed by the time I got there. I slowed down, and took my time to manouvre through. I still managed to overtake quite a few people, including 2 ladies during the sand part....hmmm, I thought I was afraid of the sand, but I guess some were more affected by it. By the time I finished the sand portion, my legs felt a bit wobbly. Coming out of the sand, some were walking a bit, including familiar faces. I carried on slow-running to recover and catch my breath, and soon reached the 7.5km mark. With 2.5km to go, I picked up the pace a bit, and tried to catch up with some front runners. At about the 8.5km mark, I was overtaken momentarily by 2 lean runners. I continued to pace them, and along the way overtook other runners, some of whom were MR25 veterans....wow, these were the good runners from MR25. I decided to track them and overtook them at the 9km mark, and from there, increased my pace to finish the final km in 48min50sec according to the clock, and 48min20sec according to my stopwatch. I could see that Tay Lee Huat from SAFRA, a good friend, finished 25m ahead of me. It was a very hard run for me, and I had to take about 10min to recover, before going to collect my goodie bag.

Real Run 'lightning dry' T-Shirt after the race

After the run, I met up with Alan (new runner who just joined us at SAFRA). Alan did 48min, which I thought was a respectable time. I gathered with the SgRunners and got to meet more members like skyvvers who did a good 47min timing. TLR did 46min. Carine did 52min, which I thought would secure her a prize for the women's category. She subsequently did get 13th position, and a well deserved prize. We had some good candid shots, and also group photos again. While the rest of the group went for breakfast, I took early leave. I look forward to our next meeting at the Mizuno Wave Run 2005, just next Sunday.

Results are out
Full Results Of All Categories

More photos of the day's run here.

Distance Ran:10km __Clock Time:48:58min___Pace:4:53min/km
Chip Time: 48:23min