3rd Nike Runaholics

Heh...this Sunday morning's PSI was about 60...the air felt ok when I peeked out from my front door. No milk, so no cereal for me...took a PowerBar instead...wah, hard...haha. Picked DO, Superboy and Stazla, before arriving to F2 ECP to meet the rest of the bunch; Brokie, leh-lio, Sotong, Ultraman, Mythos, Jennifery. Quite a group from SgRunners for this 3rd Nike Runaholics run. The crowd was larger than last week's, probably due to the better air conditions.

Vincent from MR25 gave the brief of the 15km route today, and off we went at 7.30am. We started off slowly, and I was taking my time to soak in the sights and smell the 'fresher' air. I was trailing Ultra and DO most of the time, and reached NSRCC (3.5km mark) in 17min. Took 2 cups of water, and turned back towards F2. Saw leh-lio first, followed by Sotong. The skies still looked cloudy, but at least the air was ok. Reached back to the start point in 34min, and covered 7km by then...ok, still sub 5min pace. Stopped for a short while to take 2 cups of water, before carrying on. From there, I kept at the constant 5min pace and was contented to just follow Ultra and DO from a distance. I could see Ultra/DO running steadily, overtaking Rod Monteiro at some point, along with many of the runners who started out fast earlier. I managed to overtake a few tired runners along the way too, and with 1km to the final U-turn, the MR25 lead runners were dashing back. I persevered a little more, and reached the U-turn at the Jetty (11km mark) in 54min.

With about 20min left of running to do, I know I will complete below 1hr15min. I continued to maintain that slightly sub-5min pace, and continued to till I reached the seafood centre area. I overtook the 'yellow bandana' guy at about that point, Saw Mythos and Jennifery going for their 'entended' run? wow...these ironmen really have to run more than us lay folks for their training *salute*. With 2km to go, and the elapsed time showing 1hr3min, I just had to maintain that all the way to finish the entire 15km in 1hr13min.

It was a better run for me today, since I did 1hr17min last week for the same 15km...the haze as well as the after-effects of the NIE overnight run taking their toll. As usual, we had a good time cheering on the rest of the runners, and when all SgRunners were back, we adjourned to Marine Parade food centre for my favourite Tom Yum Ramen...haha. This being the 3rd Runaholics run that some of us have completed, we will be getting our Runaholics running top at a special price *beams*...and if we can continue on with 3 more runs, and clocking 50km more, we can hopefully be the first 20 to clock 90km and get a free Nike Bowerman running shoes...wow, looking forward to that...that will be icing on the cake..:)

Distance: 15km__Time: 1:13:31hr__Pace: 4:54min/km