My maiden Demoralizing Run

Fennel, Doraemon_red, Brokie, Gentle, DO, Dream

I was looking forward to this Demoralizing Run along Changi Coastal Road. Had a big dinner on Saturday evening, which more than provided for the carbo-loading required...Lots of races and events this Sunday morning, and I was not expecting a large group to turn up. Picked DO up and we were the first to arrive at Car Park 2 at Telok Paku Road, off Changi Village Road. We were soon joined by Doraemon_red who was seen running towards us like a ninja with her cute, red haversack...hehe, then followed by Fennel who arrived in a taxi all the way from the West...whoa!...and finally, when RSM Brokie arrived, DO & me ushered her into a nice, big parking lot specially marked out :))

The 5 of us started off from that point at Changi Beach Park, ran about 400m backwards to the end of the track, and proceeded forward. The sunrise in the distance was nice, and with some cloud cover, the morning was rather cool with a light breeze. We chatted merrily as we ran the approximately 3km beach track, through the rows of large trees, flanked by the beach. Some weekenders were already setting up tentages and ground ponchos, ready to spend a nice Sunday morning by the beach. I recalled that we did this stretch of road the first time last December during our first Ghost Run, where teelee and Ripley were among many other new SgRunners that joined in.

We made a short stop at the last toilet before Changi Coastal Road (CCR). This stretch of CCR is a long, straight and flat road that really tests one's mental strength and perseverance...as it goes for a good 5-6km, running parallel to the Changi Airport runway. It brought back memories of the 168km NTU run last year where I was one of the escorts to Lim Nghee Huat. Ultraman, Alvo, Meteor, True_Atlantean and Karen were the rest of the escorts then who ran this challenging stretch, and we made at least 3 stops. It was then that my ITBS flared up too. This morning, the 5 of us were running this stretch at a very steady 6min/km pace. The interesting conversations kept us going smoothly, this despite Fennel and Brokie having done 14km just the previous day...wahh, *salute*. We ran as a bunch occupying almost an entire lane. There were a couple of large trucks, and they mostly went on the second lane. There were lots of cycling groups though, and it was interesting to see many young children on those nice racing bikes... understood later that they were from the Triathlon Association of Singapore (TAS). We took in the sights, and the occasional taking off of aircrafts spurred us to move faster at certin small stretches.

The group maintained a nice 6min/km pace all the way to the turning point of about 10km. We had run for about 1hr by then, as we crossed over the road, and began the return journey. All of us still felt very stong and good. Some cyclists were also returning along that same stretch, and out of nowhere came one just in front of us, and gave us a wave. We immediately recognized it was Spiffy... she looked great in her very shwe blue biking outfit and also very pro leh...hehe. We waved back, and shouted at her...she moved slightly ahead, and made a turn back onto the other road...nice to see a familiar face along the way. As we were enjoying ourselves, the run did not seem demoralizing at all...in fact, it was refreshing... soon, we had 4km left to the beach toilet. The gals were still maintaining a very strong 6min/km pace. DO and I then moved slightly ahead to allow them to maintain their strong pace to the finish. The sun was out strongly by this time, and it was good conditioning for us, at least for the final stretch of 4-5km. I was running maybe just about 4:30min/km pace for the few km, and when we were about to reach, another cyclist shouted at us...that was Gentle...We acknowledged him as he went further down to say hello to the gals. We all met up at the beach toilet for a short toilet stop, before going on to finish the final 3km of beach road. I ran that stretch at about 4:30-4:45min/km and the gals probably did about 5:30min/km. DO and I finished the whole run in about 2hr, while the gals came in at 2hr05min. We estimated the distance to be about 19km. A very good paced run, and good workout for me at least. That was the longest Fennel had run...wow, this gal has good potential. Doraemon and Brokie also did very well, very strong finish.

A satisfied run, rewarded with Brokie's Barley

As we stretched and enjoyed heavenly Brokie's Barley, we were joined by Sotong and his MHA. A nice surprise visit, and despite Sotong's injury and not being able to run, he came to say hello and even took some pics. We had a good chat, washed up, and then walked to the nearby Changi Food Centre for some of their famous eats. The famous beef noodles were not opened, so we tried some of the other nice food like bak-chor mee, fried carrot cake and chwee kuey. We were pleasantly surprised to bump into the HSP group of taz, Roentgen, daisiki, AngelicaWonders, KickJazz, teelee, JT. They did a 3hr run from Kovan all the way to Pasir Ris... I am impressed with their seriousness and dedication to do LSDs to prepare for the upcoming AHM...and daisiki mentioned they planned to do more LSDs and that was just the beginning...whoa...thats the right attitude. The two groups exchanged details of their morning runs, and the pace of chatter was indeed doubly-quick...hehe. Brokie, DO and I managed to leave in time and walked back to our vehicles, before the rains came....perfect timing to what was a near-perfect Sunday Demoralizing Run. We already had some suggestions of doing variations of this run, going into the beaches and serene areas of Loyang Chalets; the very flat road from Changi Beach, along CCR all the way to ECP/Fort Road for what might be possibly the ultimate flat and Long Demoralizing Run (LDR)...hahaha.

Distance Ran: 19km___Time Taken: 2hr___Pace: 6:18min/km