SHAPE Run 2006 (Part I)

To mark SHAPE magazine's second anniversary, SHAPE organised a women's only run and it was held yesterday, 16 Jul 2006.

Many of the sgrunners, including myself, registered for the 10km event.

Teelee, our ever trusty-professional-runner-cum-transport-provider, picked up the HSP folks early on Sunday morning. By 6:30am, with Junie, myself, Shut, Charmane, Superboy & Nemo in the TLV, we proceeded to Esplanade to meet up with the rest of the sgrunners. Meeting place: Esplanade Food Street at 7am.

At the Esplanade car park, we met Dreamrunner & his MHA. DR was there to support his wife who is running the 5km run.

There was a huge turnout for the sgrunners and the gals taking part in the run are:-
IMD's MHA-to-be (yihua), miffy, bikerchic, charlotte (a very big THANK YOU to char for helping me to collect my race pack!) , divey, penguin, bee, brokie, leh-lio gal, bbmon (wow! finally get to see her in person! too bad never get to introduce myself to her, she is like a celebrity in her own rights!!!), meteor, run3, tekko's MHA ... (and many many more!) Oh, and not forgetting Ripley, who despite still recovering from her blisters and walking with a slight limp, turned up to support us with her ever trusty camera!

The sgrunners boi bois that turn out are just as amazing, with IMD, shut (lugging 2 cameras and looking really tired after the WHR just the day before!! Hey thanks man for coming to support even tho u r sooooo tired!!!), teelee, superboy, nemo, tiwazz, hedgehog, renoh (both hedgehog & renoh already did a 18km run prior to meeting us !!! *hail*), alvo, tekko, Dasher (looking super pro with tripod and all), cyberkinetics (who turned up in pink to match the pink poms poms he made! WOW!!), cosmic (who skipped his morning class to come support us !!) and roentgen (who really needs his rest, been working 3 weeks non-stop, and yet turns up to support us).










There were 2 categories to the run. The 5km and 10km one. More participated in the former than latter and the latter were flagged off first, followed by the 5km runners about 10 mins later. Tho it is my 2nd event, I find the atmosphere disappointing. The music wasn't blasting from the speakers, the MC was pretty flat. Basically just delivering announcements to the crowd, instead of psyching the crowd up for the run. 10 mins before the run, they actually had someone on a makeshift stage showing us warm up exercises (more like aerobics). We were already packed and having difficulty moving our arms and they wanted us to do aerobics ???? The warm up are pretty lame anyway and after a while I just gave up trying. The 5km runners are a little more ON, dancing to the music. I was with charmane, junie and bikerchic and we were just yakking away while waiting for the time to pass. When the horn finally sounded, Junie and Charmane sprinted forward leaving me and bikerchic behind. I told biker to go ahead without me and soon I was alone. Thankfully I had my ipod with me and I just put on my earphones and started my run.

Guess being inexperienced, I wasn't able to regulate my pace. In a bid to not fall too far behind the gals, I was running at too fast a pace too early into the run. A check of my HRM 4 mins into the run and i was hitting 87%! Not too good. Along the way, met sxuangjing & penguin, bee. Saw Yihua & Divey in front, within eye shot .... 20 minutes into the run and i was feeling tired! My legs were getting heavy and I was starting to worry.

Passing the stadium and on the return leg back, I saw Divey walking. After finally catching up with her, I asked whether she is ok. She replied No and that she is in pain :( oh dear .... She explained that in her rush out of the house the morning, she forgot to take her painkillers and now her ITB hurts. I was worried but there wasn't much I could do. I tot of running back (not as if i can run fast lah! but at least in whatever speed i can lah) to get her her painkillers, but she mentioned she didn't even bring her painkillers. Not knowing what to do, i decided to just accompany her back just in case she needs help. Frankly I do not know what I can do to help but I just felt better knowing at least I'm with her. Anyway I'm not gunning for any timing nor PB ... and not as if i can run any faster! hahaha

Along the way, I saw this guy ran past me (was a little shocked to see a guy in the run!), he was keeping a gal company and even dousing her with water. Wah! good support siah! Sxuanjing & penguin passed us near last 2km mark and after a bit of chit chat, they proceeded on.

I have to say I'm most amazed with IMD! I saw him at several of the points along the way cheering us on and taking our pics. Its amazing the efforts he took just to run around to position himself at various spots just to help take our pics & support us. When you are feeling exhausted and wondering how much longer, it is good to see a familiar face cheering u on and giving u the moral support. Now I understand the importance of support! and Yihua is soooo lucky! :)

Towards the end point, Divey and I saw our sgrunners boi bois cheering us on, clapping and motivating us to go on and taking our pics. We really felt like celebrities and the support given by these guys are just SIMPLY AMAZING!!! I'm just bowled over!!

Finally crossed the finishing line 1hr 6 mins later. Not too bad by my standard considering I took a pretty leisure pace for half the distance. I read Divey's blog tho, and to her this timing is "v bad timing" ... oops! hahaha ... ok lah, different standards :P

The helpers were giving out water to us (relish!!! as I didn't take any water at the water point) and we even had kiwi! Yum yum! After cooling down, it was then photo taking time. We took a lot of pics, with the fellow sgrunner gals, and then with the supporters. Think we sgrunners had the biggest group of supporters and there were just so many cameras to smile into! It was really fun!

I also had the opportunity to meet up with several new faces like yuuinja & tooty. There are many veteran sgrunners like spiffy that was there but I didn't get to know who that was. Wasted! Talked to her over the shoutbox before. Ah well, another time then ...

While yakking away, some of our wonderful boi bois went to the carpark to collect our barang from the cars. (WOW!!! We felt like princesses leh! Was soooo surprised to see the bunch of guys carrying our barang up to us ... THANKS GUYS! YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!!!)

We took a few group pics (what a big turnout! everyone was like looking at us!) before proceeding to Marina Square to collect our goodie bag. Horrors of horrors, the queue was soooo long and it was snaking all the way out to the open area outside Marina Square! We decided to fill our stomachs first (lest a few patient gals who decided to queue to collect their goodie bags first) before returning to collect our bags, and hence proceeded to the food court above to have our fill.

This blog is way tooo long and messy I have to say, anyway, I will continue Part II of how my day went later.

Stay tune ...