A revisit to Northern Route

Wow, the haze is really affecting our neighbour, Malaysia, big time. All the runners have been banished indoors, and even those in air conditioned environments felt choked. Malaysia had declared a state of emergency in various key states. We in Singapore just has to be thankful, and I hope we won't get the haze this time.

As I thought about it, I decided to make hay while the sun shone. I made my way to MacRitchie, and decided to do the 10km Northern Rosute. It has been a few months since I did this route, and I wanted to avoid the sun. so I chose to do trail running. Strapped on my HRM, and also tried out the Salamon water bottle which I got for Beverly. I wanted to see if it is good, and whether I should get more of it at the next sale.

Started off at the zig-zag bridge with the sun shining. I ran at a moderate pace to the exercise area, and then through what I call the tree-trunk area (lots of roots, and undulating terrain). Came out of it in 15:30min....not bad, since I normally exit in 16min+. Through the golf course area, the sun was up, but bearable. Went through Sime Track still feeling good. I took 2 sips of water, and that helped a lot in keeping my heart rate down.




I re-entered the trail from SICC road feeling good. This last 3km stretch is always a drain, since there are numerous slopes on undulating terrain to navigate. It is always this portion that I feel tired, since it is the final stretch too. I finally made it back to the end point at the car-park toilets, in 55min+....that is much slower to the normal times that I have done for this route...53min-54min. Maybe I was running at a slower pace, and also because of the hard speedwork I did just last evening. Took a H20 lime to carbo-reload, and made my way home for my next appointment.

Distance Ran:10km ___Time:5mi5:15min____Pace:5:31min/km
Average HR:158bpm___Max HR:172bpm___KCal:746KCal