The Public Service Run @ Bedok Reservoir

The first series of shorter distance races from August onwards. After collecting my New Balance Race Pack from Toa Payoh Sports Hall, met up with Lee and Andre, I drove to Adam's condominium to park. From there we took a short walk to the start of the Public Service Run at Temasek Polytechnic. When we arrived, we saw Chairman, Ong, Jaime, Chua , eh, sh, etc and they had already collected our bibs. Cool...There were already a crowd gathered, and most of the runners were there representing their respective organizations in the civil service. The few of us were running for SAFRA Running Club, which was considered invitational.

I participated in the 10km Men's Open, and was supposed to start of from Temasek Poly, running to Bedok Resevoir for 2 loops, and then back for another 300m round the Poly technic track. The weather was cool, with the skies threatening to rain. A good day for a training run, which was what I was expecting myself to do at such races (where I am not in contention for the top standings competitively). The ladies went first, followed by the men's veteran and shorter races of 5.8km.

While waiting to start off with Ong, Kumaran, Lee, Andre, I met Sukaimi aka The Lonely Runner. We said hello. After a short while, the horns blew, and off we went. The initial 5km was quite congested with the previous groups running 5.8km running slowly along the tracks as well as fringes. I remembered cm telling me to run the fringe portions of Bedok Reservoir, to avoid the drag effect of the sandy track of the reservoir. I started easy, and after 3-4km, I begun to overtake quite a number of the frontrunners. After the 1st loop, it was good relief to have the bunch of 5.8km runners turn off for their way back to the stadium. That freed the tracks, and very soon, I upped my pace and begun to overtake the front runners, a number of representing organizations such as SAFSA, Ngee Ann, etc. With about 2km, I increased the speed further to overtake about 5 more runners, before hitting the final stretch to the stadium. There I was running head-head with 2 young runners, and as I entered the stadium, I heard people shouting ann cheering for me. Sounded like Colleen? Then I saw TLR on the grass patch cheering for me (he must have reached back quite early). Round the bend,I heard cm shouting for me, and I made a dash for the finish challenging 2 others. I entered the wrong finish hold, and was told to take the other. I clicked my watch after passing for a while, and recorded 46min+, nearly 47min. I estimated 46min+ to be the actual time I took.

Later, Ong and a few others mentioned that the total distance was a bit longer than 10km, more like 10.5km...hmmm, then my timing was pretty good for me then. Well, I hope the timings would be recorded by the organizers, even for non top finishers like myself. After the whole event, we went to Adam's place and had a most enjoyable night BBQing and drinking wine. A good carbo-reloading session for a good workout in the afternoon.

Distance Ran:10km ___Time:46min55sec____Pace:4:42min/km
Average HR:149bpm___Max HR:175bpm___KCal:700KCal