Cool Saturday morning

It looked like a humid Saturday as we gathered for the aniMILES 24km route starting from Lower Pierce Reservoir. The actual aniMILES group were doing their run from ECP this morning in preparation for AHM in 2 weeks time. RealRunner, Cheow12, Freddy, DO, Gentle and myself made the start....Bug and Fennel called in sick, and were unable to join us.

It was great to meet up with Cheow12 and Freddy after a long absence from them...both of them did very well for their respective activities. We went on a reasonable pace, possibly 5:15min/km. Gentle made his way to Seletar Reservoir stretch for a 18km. The rest of us just went on along Upper Thomson Road, turning onto Mandai Road all the way to the 12km U-turn point. The weather was cool but not much wind...the pace for the first half was a tad slow...it was comfortable as we bunched up. I reached the U-turn in 1:03...slightly slower than last week's 1:02, but was feeling a lot better today.

On the way back, I just trailed Freddy from about 200m who maintained a very steady pace. I felt quite good this morning with my Speedstar...up to the 15km mark...then my mind drifted away thinking about an incident at work....suddenly felt a pain in my inner right knee. I slowed for a 1km stretch....fortunately the pain went away. I continued on all the way back to OUTR, and was still feeling strong. It has been some time since I felt good at that 20km mark, up the OUTR gentle slope. With 4 km to finish, I just maintained a steady pace and manouvred those dreadful bends to finish the 24km run in 2hr4min+.

It was4min off last week's timing, but I felt pretty strong...probably didn't push very hard, but I was happy to just have maintained that tempo. Gentle was already at the finish all rested and fresh, cheering us on. RR and Freddy finished in 2:02 and 2:03, with Cheow coming back in a strong 2:08. DO came back shortly from his easy-paced run. A nice run for me, and we celebrated with cold choco milk, followed by ice-cold milo at our favourite stall...their iced-milo is really very thick and delicious...ahhhhh!

Distance: 24km__Time: 2hr4min__Pace: 5:10min/km