Seletar Reservoir & Sports Massage

I had to get my weekend run in before my sports 'maintenance' massage in the later part of Sat morning. I woke up at 4:30am to join the aniMILES for their 5am 24km run. It was quite a rush as I downed a piece of marble cake, and a banana, before dashing off to Lower Pierce Reservoir. I reached at 5am, and saw Desmond, Shin Hui, Anna, notme, and many other aniMILES...then met up with RealRunner, fennel and later chankw.

Vivian Tang ushered the start at 5:10am, and after the dust settled, it was just RR, fennel, chan and myself watching the backs of the aniMILES runners, fading into the darkness of the early morning. The air was cool, but humid. RR and I ran and chatted for most of the way along OUTR, and once along UTR, I tailed RR from about 50m. When he turned into Seletar Reservoir, I followed....I was a little concerned I would bump into the pack of dogs in that area. Fortunately, they were subdued and resting by the side this morning. RR waited for the toilet at the Reservoir Tower, while I proceeded on towards Mandai Crematorium. We had been running an average pace of about 5:30min/km.

Once out onto Mandai Road (covered about 9.5km), spotted some of the aniMILES running a shorter route coming back. I proceeded on to pass the reservoirs on the left, and by the 11km mark, Vivian, Desmond, Anna, notme and the rest were storming back. I was feeling thirsty and tired, and decided to just turn back at the entrance of the zoo (instead of going all the way in as earlier planned). I reached the U-turn point in 1hr4min, and after the turn back, saw RR coming...wow, either he was fast or I was slow....he caught up by quite a lot. On the return journey back, I kept to a constant, albeit slower pace than normal. I was telling myself not to push too hard ahead of the massage session.

I felt so thirsty this morning...I had to stop for a drink of water at the Executive Golf Course toilet...in spite having brought my fuel belt along. After the drink, I felt much better, and finished the remaining journey along UTR and OUTR back to LPR. SC5 and a few others who did 8km was just going to wash up. I had a good chat with Desmond, and later fennel, RR and chankw joined in. I was real sweaty this morning, with my left eye getting red from the perspiration. I went back to wash-up and proceeded for the sports massage...wow, much of me were loosened....nice. Things were real tight at certain parts, especially the shoulder area...I was glad to get the massage done, and I can now look forward to a much 'loosened' me at next Sunday's MF Challenge :)

Distance: 25km__Time: 2hr10min__Pace: 5:12min/km