Run for Hope Singapore 2009

I participated in the event over the weekend. It’s a non-competitive run organized to raise funds for cancer research. The plan was to do the 4km run since the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon is just around the corner and I didn’t want to expend all my energy. With this in mind, I was taking it easy and doing things (e.g. running errands etc) I wouldn’t normally have done during the week and weekend leading up a race.

Up to the point of walking to the start point, I was in 2 minds about doing the 4km or 10km. In the end, I chose the latter and told myself to take it easy similar to a training run. It was a good strategy since it calmed me down with no expectations to clock a certain timing.

The route at East Coast Park (ECP) was fairly straightforward and flat and made for a relaxed recovery run (after Thursday’s 9.2km at Lake Gardens). The first 1.5-2 km was reduced to an almost walk given the crowd but after that, most of us got our space. Since this was a non-competitive run, the route was not closed to the public but the organizers had route marshals along the key points. Water stations were plentiful with 500ml mineral water bottles or 200ml cups and each station was 1.5-2km apart. I grabbed the 200ml cups at each point and fairly hydrated – the sun was bright and shiny since the flag-off was at 8 am and there being minimal shades along ECP.

At the finish point, there were more goodies – iced water, Milo, bananas, apples, fruit squeeze (fruit squashed and packaged into thin wafers; at least that’s how they looked like). As usual, I only went for the water.

I finished the run in 51:58 minutes but the route was shorter than 10km – at least according to my Garmin. It clocked 9.459km. Oh well, all in, it was nice and pleasant run. I gathered from the SgRunners forum that the 4km run was also short by 700m.