NUS Hill Run

It was my first NUS Hill Run, held at the NUS Kent Ridge Guild House. This weekly wed run is co-organized by doraemon and tktan, and the run offered a finisher's membership card, signed and chopped with the avatars of both the organizers. I have heard quite a bit about the run, but only managed to find time to go down yesterday evening.

Gathering of The NUS Hill Runners

I was just on time, and after a bit of searching, managed to find xdd and DO, plus the rest of the gang. It was a record turnout I was told. Sotong, Ronnie, Fennel, Meng, cosmic were among those who were present. When we started at about 7.15pm, xdd immediately set a fast pace..I felt it was 5min/km and below. DO and Ronnie were hot on her heels. I was content to follow closely behind. We ran all along the winding South Buona Vista road, and then passing Haw Par Villa, and many nice restaurants and the famouse Duck Rice stall. After about 3km, we went up the steep slope of Vigilante Drive, one of the killer slopes that was the flavour of this NUS Hill Run. It was a challenging climb, and fortunately it was not too long. We waited at the car-park mid-way up for the rest, before setting off on a longish downslope, very good for recovery.

We finally reached Science Park, and took a quick water break there. It was fortunate we had that break, for when we ran out of Science Park towards Buona Vista Road, we chose the longer 12km route that had the very long series of upslopes along Prince George Park (PGP)....what xdd termed at the PGP slopes. Wow, that was indeed the highlight of the evening's run, as we went up slope after slope, and tktan was showing his slope prowess by powering ahead. I was just thinking when the series of slopes would end, and I held back some just in case. After what seemed like eternity, I saw tktan hit the top of the final slope and slow-jogged....wowee, we had finished the 'siong' final slope. Before we could take a quick breather, xdd had come up, and there we went again, running on. I figured we must have covered 10km by then, based on the effort I had put in.

The way back was long, and whenever I see some building in NUS, I thought we were near the end. Cosmic led the way after a while as we climbed some more slopes up. He led us to run around the NUS perimeter, and after a while, I thought we might be lost. However, with xdd closely behind and shouting directions to us, we were in good hands. I continued to chugged along, and felt pretty hungry and drained. We finally finished the run after what seemed like a very long while. I was surprised when xdd announced we took all of 1hr3min...wow, it seemed a lot longer than that! The entire group came back within 1hr10min...wow, that was fast timing for that 12km course.

Tai Pai Tong makan

We had nice 100plus (thanks to Meng) with ice, and then followed by presentation of goodie bags and membership card (Nus Hill Runners Club) to all who completed the run....wow, really motivating, glad I went down...hahaha. We joked a bit about having qualifying times of 1hr15min for the 12km route for membership. There were even talks of doing a finisher's T, and even a NUS Hill Runners Club T...wow! After a nice wash-up, we all shared a yummilicious 'Tai Pai Tong' meal of yummy Chinese dishes (which I will leave xdd to show and tell more). It was an enjoyable session for me....I look forward to doing more of the NUS Hill Run soon. This NUS Hill Route will certainly condition and prepare those who run it regularly for hilly races like the Pacesetters 30km run in 1.5weeks time.