“I am now a champion amongst men, rather than schoolboys.” — Soh Rui Yong

Story by Soh Rui Yong

Bedok Reservoir Park, Saturday, January 21, 2012 — Competing at the Singapore Athletic Association (SAA) Cross-Country Championships has always been an enjoyable experience since my days in school, as it brings together the best runners from all of Singapore together from those specializing in 800m to the marathon and from the young, fresh Secondary One faces to the hardened veterans of the sport. Especially since I have graduated from JC and am no longer eligible for the National Schools Championships, the SAA National Cross-Country Championships has become the biggest cross-country race on my calendar.

I have been fortunate to enjoy a good record at the SAA Cross-Country Championships, winning the Under-17 age group title back in 2007, then winning three successive U-20 age-group crowns in 2008, 2009, and 2010. I also managed to set a Bedok Reservoir 5km U-20 course record of 16 minutes 20 seconds back in 2009 in the process, which still stands today. My winning streak at the championships was snapped last year when I competed in the Men’s Open category for the first time and finished in third place behind Jason Lawrence of MacRitchie Runners 25 (MR25), who set a new course record of 15min 58sec, and Muhammad Shah Feroz of Swift Athletics Club.

I had been defeated by two formidable opponents, and third place was no disgrace, but I was determined to do better this year. Though I have been in off-season training since completing the Standard Chartered Half Marathon last month, my training had been going well, and though I knew I was lacking in race sharpness and pace training, I was quietly confident that I was fit enough to run decently well at SAA 2012.

Jason and Feroz were expected to return for this year’s edition, together with other top local athletes such as Ashley Liew of Singapore Management University (SMU) and Karthic Harish Ragupathy of Swift Athletics Club, as well as the Gurkha running team. The Men’s Open field looked to be stronger than ever, and I knew I would have to work hard and run well if I were to survive.

The night before the race, I went to bed by 10pm, aiming to get 8 hours of rest to prepare my body for the battle ahead. Being tired from conducting Physical Education (PE) lessons in the hot sun for the past two weeks during my new stint as a PE teacher at Raffles Institution, it wasn’t long before I fell sound asleep.

On race day, I was woken up at 6am not by my alarm clock, but by the quick thumping of my heart and a surge of adrenaline. This has always happened on my race days and was nothing new to me. After breakfast and a shower, I was out the door and on my way to Bedok Reservoir, listening to my favourite tunes on my 6-year old Ipod mini.

I arrived at Bedok Reservoir at 7.30am. My race was only scheduled to start at 9.30am but I wanted to arrive early to help my secondary school juniors prepare for their races (the girls and boys were starting their races earlier). After assisting in the pinning of number tags and engaging in a bit of pep-talking, my juniors were on their way, while I waited for the junior college boys and the alumni team to arrive. I sat around and soaked in the atmosphere. It’s no longer the same to me now as compared to when I was still in school, but the competition atmosphere at a cross-country meet like this is always something to treasure.

As we had the same race flag-off time, the Raffles JC and Alumni team combined to warm-up together. I felt stiffness in my chest and legs at the start of warm-up, but I put it down to morning lethargy and tried to jog it off. True enough, the stiffness disappeared halfway through my warm-up jog.

The weather was scorching hot, and the humidity in the air was the worst in recent memory, so I was making it a point to hydrate sufficiently by taking consistent sips of water and isotonic drinks when stretching after our warm-up jog. 15 minutes before the scheduled gun-time of the race, we started making our way to the start line.

Unlike previous years, there was little delay at the start line, as we were quickly organized, given a race briefing, and flagged off soon after gathering at the start line (a little too quickly, unfortunately, for my Raffles Alumni team-mate Johnathan Wong, who was still drinking from his water bottle when the horn blared to start off our race).

I was elbowed in the arm soon after the start, as runners jostled for space, but managed to keep my balance and shoot off into the front few positions. Two Gurkhas soon moved into the lead and pushed the early pace, with Jason Lawrence and myself in third and fourth. Expecting the early pace to be fast, I sat back and focused on using as little effort as possible to follow the race leaders.

700m after the start, we moved past the crowd of supporters, many of whom were cheering at the top of their voices. Somehow, above the din, I heard my coach Mr Quek instruct in his very distinct voice, “That’s good Rui Yong, keep in front and stay relaxed.”

Soon after, I moved past Jason into third place behind the two Gurkhas, who were still happy to lead the race, though I felt that the pace had somewhat slowed. Not keen to take the pace so early in the race, however, I hung back and waited to see what would happen. I then stumbled briefly as Jason, who was following close behind me, stepped on my foot purely on accident. In an act of sportsmanship that displays the great respect that we runners have for one another, Jason immediately apologized for the mishap, while I threw up a palm to signal, “no problem”.

The two Gurkhas continued to lead, but seemed to be losing steam as the pace drifted continuously. This allowed Hua Qun, my team-mate, and Karthic of Swift to catch up and join our pack. We crossed the 2.2km mark in a pack of six, and I decided on a move to change the nature of the race. Looking around, I saw everybody in the pack happy with the status quo, with no one keen to make a move anytime soon.

“Fine, I’ll do it then,” I told myself, and surged strongly past the two Gurkhas into the lead. This sudden increase in pace must have caught the pack off guard, for I instantly established a gap over them.

Sensing that nobody was going with me, I shifted my focus to settling into a quick pace that would allow me to keep my distance from the pack of five who were hunting me down. The bad point about leading a race is that your competitors are able to watch your moves and devise a plan to hunt you down, while, as the hunted, there is only one thing you can do: run for your life.

And that’s exactly what I did. I ran for it, pushing myself to run faster and faster. One kilometer passed, and I still didn’t feel anybody behind me. “Keep going, never slow down once you have the lead!” I reminded myself.

Pushing harder, yet doing my best to relaxed my shoulders and maintain my running posture, I crossed the 3.8km marker, with only 1.2km left to run. I stole a look behind while negotiating a turn around the reservoir, expecting to see runners hot on my heels, but saw no one. Disbelieving, I refused to believe my eyes and ran another 200m before looking back again.

No one.

It was unbelievable. I had somehow established an insurmountable lead and was about to become Singapore’s National Cross-Country Champion in the Men’s Open for the first time ever. Forgetting the pain that my body was in, I ran the last kilometre of the race in joy, and crossed the finish line in pure ecstasy, still in disbelief at what I had just accomplished.

I took a few seconds to catch my breath before going on a cool-down jog. About half a minute into my jog, I saw Karthic enter the finishing straight, celebrating with his hands aloft. The 17-year-old, probably the youngest in the Men’s Open field, had put up a gutsy performance to take second place, beating many athletes who were older and more experienced than him. Jason finished in third place to round off the top three, with Ashley just a second behind in fourth.

As Mr C. Kunalan, Singapore’s legendary sprinter, draped the gold medal around my neck, I felt as though a major milestone in my sporting career had been reached. I had won numerous national schools gold medals during my time in Raffles Institution, but I am now a champion amongst men rather than schoolboys.

The time has come for me to step up from being a “young talented runner” or the “next Mok Ying Ren” as I was once dubbed by a sports journalist back in 2009, and work towards achieving greater goals while inspiring the current batch of young talented schoolboys to do the same.

Through training harder to become a better athlete, and also by managing other aspects of my life as well to become a better person overall, I hope to achieve that.