NUS Hills again...

Went down to Kent Ridge for my 2nd NUS Hill Run with xdd, tktan, Ronnie, babumouse, meng, hohorunner, fennel and swoop. While driving down, I received a sms from xdd at informing of good weather. I was one of the first few to reach, and while warming up and waiting for the rest, we chatted about the Pacesetters 30km weekend.

There was a change of plan to just do the 12km Vigilante/PGP route. We started off at 7.30pm, and on the way, saw fennel and swoop rushing in to get ready. xdd was waiting for them. The pace in front as usual was fast, and as I needed more time to get warmed up, I lagged behind most of the way until we reached the Haw Par Villa area. Running up Vigilante Drive was pretty tough, especially for me coming from having done 3.5 loops of the Kent Ridge slopes the previous day. Still managed to make it, and proceeded with the long recovery down-slope. The nice thing about this route are the long downslopes for recovery, after having tackled the steep upslopes. We took a break at Science Park, and had xdd catch up with us.

From Science Park, I followed xdd all the way along the 99-winding road area, then cut through to NUS again, before ascending the PGP slopes. It was another long, strenuous climb for me, and I was sure glad when I finally made it to the top after what seemed like running on a never-ending stretch of slopes *shudder*. Before I could take a good breather, xdd came along and said 'lets carry on, tktan knows the way'...wah, following this gal is really no-nonsense... haha. As I was not that familiar with that stretch, I had to pick my heavy legs up and continued along. As my nose was still a little 'sniffy', I was breathing/panting a lot using my mouth, and that made me very thirsty.

xdd was really strong, keeping to a 5min/km pace, and even when running more upslopes, she was steady and never slowed down for me to catch up....haha. I managed to make it to the final stretch after some good chasing, and when xdd exclaimed 'the final slope', I was so happy. I increased my stride to match xdd's and we made it back in 1hr3min. Ronnie and babumouse were already back...wah, such speedsters. The rest came back shortly too. We had a good round of 100plus, thanks to tktan, chatted more about how the NUS Hills compared with those at Pacesetters. I did not join the group for dinner as I had to run off for another appointment. It was another good workout for me, and I sweated buckets.

Distance: 12km__Time: 1hr3min__Pace: 5:15min/km