AniMILES 24km

After last Saturday's warm and not very enjoyable run, I was looking forward to this Saturday's aniMILES 24km run yet again. Fortunately, we were blessed with very cool weather, almost with a tinge of frostiness in the air :). DO, RealRunner, Bug, Fennel, Gentle, SealBoon, stazla and myself gathered to start off at 5.30am, while the group of SC5, notme and gang had started earlier at 5am.

It was some time since I last saw stazla, and she had kept up with her running pretty well. The group of us ran mostly together along OUTR in the crisp morning air. We probably maintained a steady pace of about 5:15min/km for that stretch. Once out onto UTR, RR took the lead, with me and stazla following closely. We increased the pace to 5min/km and moved steadily to close the gap with RR. Just before the turn into Mandai Rd, I decided to push the pace further as I was feeling good. It must have been the nice 'lobster porridge' dinner I had the previous night...hehe.

Along Maindai Rd, I started to count the bus-stops and reached the 3rd bus-stop in 55min. That must be the turning point for 22km? just before that, saw Bug zooming back. He was doing a 21km trial run. I moved on past a few more bus-stops....total of 6, before hitting the zebra crossing (24km U-turn point) in 1hr2min...hmm, ok, that was the timing I did last year....last week, I was at this same point in 1hr7min...real slow then. On the U-turn, I saw RR coming up and waved to him. Further up, DO and Fennel came along, and then SealBoon. stazla and Gentle had turned earlier into Seletar Reservoir area.

I felt good at the 14km mark, and decided to keep up the pace to go for a reverse split. The pace would have been below 5min/km by then. The cool air really made me feel good, and not that tired. Finally turned back into UTR, and was still feeling strong. RR was creeping up from behind I reckoned. I continued on till the entrance to OUTR, with the pace dipping. RR passed me with 3km to go, and from there, I maintained a 100m gap from him. If he had not continued with his nice pace, I would have slowed down as I was feeling tired by then.

The sports beans had kept me up with good energy along the way. Finally reached the end point in close to 2hr1min....I'll just take 2hr...hehe. Body sensed and still felt ok, with reserves to go for more....definitely not as tired and drained as last week. The Asics Speedstar I wore felt cushiony and light throughout...may consider using it for AHM. Took nice HL choco milk and 100plus, coutesy of RR and Bug...everyone agreed it was a nice, cool run, and all were happy as we washed up, and proceeded to the Food Centre to have brekky and met up with the aniMILES gang as well.

Distance: 24km__Time: 2hr__Pace: 5min/km