The Dreamrunner blogged:
I had just 2 relatively short runs this week, and I was looking forward to this 20km run organized by the MR25, in preparation of its runners for the year end Standard Chartered Marathon. I recalled having done this 20km progressive run last year, had to walk a bit on some of the slopes at the Golf Course, and returned with a reasonable time of 1hr58min. I am just looking to do a sub-2hr run this time, and better my 2005 timing.
I watched the elections results till 2am before waking up at 5:45am for the run. I felt ok as I downed a bowl of cereal and a banana to provide fuel for this would-be hard run. DO, Ultraman, Alvo, Bug and myself were at the starting line in MacRitchie lower carpark toilets by 6:45am. Registered for the race and got my bib no. 38…hmm nice no. The weather was cool, after some rains in the night. Some of the expected runners like Lai Chee, Brokie, bbmon, TLR did not turn up as they had prior appointments. Gentle arrived about 5min to race start. Zhiwei, a new SgRunner joined us for this run too. Saw the usual MR25 runners all raring to start. In a rush, I forgot to bring my watch and was quite apprehensive about not being able to track my timing. I decided then to track familiar runners for a sense of the pace. At the whistle, all the runners headed in the direction of the Northern Route. The pace was ok initially as there were some blockages by walkers. Once into the trails, the pace picked up and a large group ran forward. I was keeping a steady pace, not too fast, but I could still feel that it was quite hard. After getting warmed up, I increased pace a little, and soon saw DO, Ultra in front. As we exited from the Northern Route, we had taken 19min…wow, that was fast…normally I would come out from there in 22min…haha.
