Nike We Run SG 10K: Diary of a run

By Les Tan/Red Sports

After training for just 6 weeks, I was happy to finish the 10km in 1:06:20, a satisfying improvement over the 1:23:01 I did at the 2011 SAFRA Singapore Bay Run 10km. (Photo 1 © Joseph Lee/Red Sports)

Waterfront Promenade @ Marina Bay, Sunday, October 21, 2012 — I don’t know about you, but I always find it hard to sleep the night before a race. It was no different again on Saturday night after I had double checked the alarm clock to make sure it was set to go off. I had a dream that I woke up, which left me feeling slightly disoriented when I finally did wake when the alarm went off at 5.30am.

After six weeks of training, it was finally the day for the Nike We Run SG 10K.

I had a couple of slices of toast, a banana and a hot cup of green tea and was out the door by 6.10am. Unlike the many pieces of triathlon gear I used to worry about — bike, helmet, running belt, shoes, goggles, gels — running is satisfyingly simple. As long as you are not so absent-minded as to walk out of your house naked, all you have to worry about is the d-tag or timing chip for your shoes, and that’s it.

I got to Connaught Drive by 6.30am just to see the Baggage Deposit set-up. It looked quite impressive with a row of trucks marked alphabetically by large signs. However, I didn’t use the service because I don’t like lining up after races to collect baggage. Everything I needed — money, keys — was put into a Ziploc bag and stuffed into the small back pocket of my running tights.

When I got to the Esplanade Bridge, I saw Vivian Tang and Tony Seakins heading out for a warm-up run. I thought I should take my cue from them, and went for a warm-up run along the Marina Bay until I broke sweat. I caught up with the duo to say hello and then bumped into Renuka Satianathan as well. (Vivian would eventually finished third in the open category in 37:32.52 while Tony was third in the men’s category, clocking 36:51.69. Renuka was second in the under-25 category, coming home in 40:57.43.)

By then, it was close to 7am already and a heaving mass of runners was already on the bridge waiting for the first wave start at 7.15am. I went as close to the front as I could. With 20,000 runners registered to run, I didn’t want to spend time running in a zig-zag pattern for the first part of the race.

With 15 minutes to kill, I sent out a couple of text messages to my Red Crew mates, Koh Yizhe and Emmanuel Phua, who were also running. I also fiddled around with my Nike+ app to get it set for the run.

I started to muse about how everyone was wearing the exact same tee. I know the rules require it, but it still made for a remarkable sight. My crew mate Joseph Lee, who was helping me take photos at the event, said the MRT trains were chockful of runners wearing the same tee and he was the odd man out with his RED tee. Another runner also stood out — because he was dressed differently while headed to one of two other runs being held on the same day.

My musing bubble was finally burst with the countdown to the start of the race. We were finally off. On stage waving us off was Vijay, the marketing manager for Nike Singapore. You couldn’t miss him looking hot and sexy in his shocking pink top.

I also spied Raena Cheong, the Nike regional communications manager, on the stage as well. I contemplated going over to say hi but she was literally having a blast with the air horn. I decided against it and just as well, because she later told me that if I had gone over, she would have given me a full blast of the air horn just for the fun of it.

The decision to start near the front proved a good one as I could run my own pace without interruption. Buoyed by the presence of so many people, I ran the first kilometre (km) in 6 minute 18 seconds. In my training runs, I’ve usually started out at 7min/km pace or slower. The warm-up before the race certainly helped too as I didn’t experience the stiffness I usually get in the first few kms of any training run.

I continued to go under 7min/km for the next two kms — 6:24, then 6:32 — but I could tell I was slowing. To distract myself, I kept a lookout for the front runners heading back on Nicoll Highway. I finally spied Soh Rui Yong leading the pack and shouted “Go, Rui Yong!”, just for the fun of it, and did the same when I saw Renuka and Vivian. Other runners were also calling out to faster friends heading back on Nicoll Highway.

I’ve always found routes with sections that turn back on themselves slightly demoralising, because you see runners heading back. I soon hit the first U-turn at the 3.4km mark, and now enjoyed the psychological pleasure of seeing the rest of the pack running on the other side of Nicoll Highway as I headed back towards Republic Avenue.

All this while, I was tracking to see if the Nike+ app was tallying with the route markers. So far so good for the first 4km.

The Republic Avenue was another repeating loop with an added challenge — an incline. I could see runners heading back up the slope on the other side, some reduced to walking, so I braced myself for the return leg. The U-turn was mercifully at the bottom of the incline and when I headed back up, I looked down and just shortened my stride, telling myself not to stop, getting little jollies from passing the walkers.

By then, I was already past the 6km mark according to the distance marker, but the Nike+ app was starting to show a slightly different distance by about 100m. By the time I hit the finish arch, the Nike+ app would register 9.74km, a 2.6% deviation.

Past the 7km mark, we hit the F1 section of the route. Running along the straight next to the F1 Pit Building was a treat with the Singapore Flyer framed nicely in the background. A random thought hit me that it would have been quite fun to have had a hydration point in the pit lane just so I could say: “I took a pit stop in the race.”

Just after the F1 Pit Building, I spied Larry Liew, the national basketballer who used to light up the B and C Division scene in North Vista Secondary colours. Remarkably, he was running in a pair of basketball shoes. I would find out later from him that his mother had thrown away his running shoes and he had no choice but to run with his balling ones.

The incline on Bayfront Avenue leading to Marina Bay Sands left me breathless and I almost stopped when I hit the crest of the road. The downhill gave me some respite before I hit the sharpest U-turn in the course — a 180-degree U-turn to bring us to the Waterfront Promenade.

Just before hitting the U-turn, I thought I heard someone ask a friend: “What is the meaning of life?” Before I could contemplate the answer myself, another pair of runners came by and one of them let out a huge burp.

I guess that’s one answer.

The last part along the Promenade played with my mind as I had to reconcile finishing the last stretch of a 10km race while looking at folks having breakfast at one of the outdoor cafes.

The finish arch showed up sooner than I expected — what happened to the final U-turn? — and I crossed the finish line in 1 hour, 6 minutes and 20.04 seconds, a satisfying improvement over the 1:23:01 I did at the 2011 SAFRA Singapore Bay Run 10km.

Inspired by the performances of Red Crew mates Colin Tung and Soh Rui Yong at the 2012 Army Half Marathon earlier this year, I had decided I would get off my backside and start running again.

Six weeks of training. 120km in training runs. It had all been worth it.

I did it.

I finished this race.

Nike We Run SG 10K race results
Desktop access: http://go.nike.com/08lu8lv6
Mobile access: http://go.nike.com/1gqhbb

N.B. This post is part of a sponsored collaboration with Nike Singapore for the We Run SG 10K event.