Pre Chiang Mai aniMILES tapering

It was a large turnout from SgRunners for the aniMILES run. many new animals turned up for a trip down to the zoo...TarePanda, SealBoon, RoadRunner (stardust's introduction), Georgie (littletigger's friend from Ozland), DeepCruiser assembled, along with Raven, kk, Gentle, DO, stardust, prata and myself. We waited for a bit, before Cheow12's party of Bug, Rory and PassionRunner came in. Chatted with SC5 who was there for his tapering 8km run with VT and gang. The actual aniMILES group had set off earlier for the longer distances.

Without much ado, we set off in the cool morning air towards OUTR. Passion and Panda were holding themselves back for a steady and slow start, with Rory roaring away with DO, SealBoon and the rest of the frontrunners. Spotted a pack of dogs midway along OUTR...though they were not as agressive as those near Seletar Reservoir, I told Seal to go ahead while I waited for the 2 gals to come up...the dogs were wondering why I was 'hanta-kaki-ing' there, but they were peaceful about it...hehe. We proceeded on past the UPR gate without much incident...I moved on at a casual pace out onto UTR and spotted DO, Rory, Seal and Gentle upfront. Shin Hui and the aniMILES were finishing up their morning run, and I exchanged a hard high-5 with her...haha. I slowly caught up with DO's party, and ran with Gentle through that remaining stretch of UTR, turning into Mandai Road. We discussed a bit about running tactics and re-fuelling, and was mainly enjoying the easy shuffling pace. Spotted Ultraman on his ninja return, and exchanged waves.

Gentle turned off into Seletar Reservoir while I moved towards the junction to the zoo. A quick check showed that I was quite slow this morning. Saw Bug running back at high speed, indicating he didn't go into the zoo. About 1km more in front, saw stardust chiong-ing, and this guy did go into the zoo and back...wah, I calculated that he must have touched the zoo in 1hr5min....very FAST! When I finally reached the junction at my flower-smelling pace, the group of DO, Panda, prata and Cheow was waiting for me...they mentioned that Rory, Passion and the rest have run into the zoo liao...so paiseh to have them wait for me...hehe. They wanted to take the Seletar Reservoir way to get come water and for a change of scenery.

On the return, I took the lead and ran slightly ahead with Cheow and DO just behind. Prata was good to pace with Panda 50m back. We reached the junction in no time, and turned into the Crematorium road....it was a scene of calmness with the Reservoir as backdrop...we ran along till we reached the Mandai Executive Golf Course area for a water stop...hinted to Panda that the 'secret' entrance to Muddy Grass was just around...hehe! We did not pause for too long, and after telling the rest we had 5km to go, we ran ahead towards OUTR and back all the way to LPR, as usual, pacing with Cheow for the final 1km. We covered about 23km in 2hr30min. Bug, stardust and RoadRunner were already back for some time.

As I got the 100plus out, the rest of the runners came back, one after another....Raven and Georgie did a good 30km run. DeepCruiser cruised back after doing 30km, and pacing Rory and Passion for most of the way. Seal and kk did a hard 27km...well done! We washed up after downing many cups of 100plus, before proceeding to the Food Centre for iced milo and good fish-ball noodle. Managed to have a few group photos taken with Georgie's cam. Discussions revolved around the GE30km run in Jan, and also how Georgie could have run a second full marathon in just 3hr8min...amazing, this gal! Till the next aniMILES run!