Sundown Marathon 2014 in Singapore

I last visited Singapore in 1993 and it is time to revisit our southern neighbour again after 21 years. Sundown Marathon gives me the green light and I also take this opportunity to visit my friends and relatives. As usual I drove  my car from Taiping to Kuala Lumpur to pick up Xin Yi who is working in KL and parked my car at the airport. At KLIA it was only RM 16 per day but it is RM 46 per day at the new KLIA2 just opened on the 9th of May. As I will only park the car for a few days I really did not care so much of the expensive parking fee. We landed at Changi Airport at 8.45 am on 31st May 2014, and Seok Wan and Xin Yi will be running the 10 KM race at 10.30 pm while I will be running my 2nd full marathon at 11.30 pm. As we can only check into our hotel at 2.00 pm we proceeded with our plan to visit our relatives who stay at Tampinees which is just two MRT stops away from the airport. We each bought a 30 Singapore dollars  3-days pass which allows us limitless travel via MRT, Bus or LRT for three days. We later discovered this is not the cheapest as we don't really travel a lot, It will be cheaper to just buy ticket for each trip either on MRT or Bus.

Waiting for the train to go to Tampines from Changi Airport

Tampines is an old township consisting of few hundreds of 11-storey of 2, 3, 4-rooms flats. There is food court at the MRT station which is adjacent to the bus terminal. We had our breakfast at the food court before we went to our relatives' flat. We stayed until lunch time before we proceeded to our hotel in the city centre.
We booked a 3- bed room in a budget hotel at Beach street which is near Bugis street,  MRT station and also the Sundown Marathon starting venue. The hotel is right in the middle of restaurants selling Chinese, Korean, Japanese and western food. But this location is famous for  Hainanese chicken rice and duck rice where the restaurants are always full. Our room is clean and spacious with wifi. But the Wifi hotspot is slow perhaps due to heavy traffic. After checking in and have my bath, I proceeded to F1 Pit Building to try my luck whether I can collect the race pack earlier. I did not know the exact location of the place so I asked along the way until I reached the exact location. To my disappointment I was only allowed to collect my race pack after 6.30 pm. So I had to walk another 1.2 km back to the hotel. By the time I reached the hotel it was almost 5.00 pm and I quickly settled on my bed to have some sleep as I did not sleep well the previous night and had to wake up at 5.00 am to go to the airport to catch my flight. I only rested for 1 hour or two before we headed to the famous Hainanese Chicken rice restaurant to try out the famous dish which Singapore tries to apply for its patent's right but objected by Malaysia. The white chicken meat really lived up to its reputation and this meal would provide me the energy to run 42.195 km through out the night.
We walked another 1.2 km to collect our race pack and another 1.2 km back to our hotel as it was too early to wait until race time.
We only went to the starting venue at 9.30 pm as the 10 km race would start at 10.30 pm. So Before the race we had already walked more than 10 km coupled with  the lack of sleep and rest, we were quite sure we would be doing poorly in this race. I was surprised by the crowds as I thought the participants would not be too many. In fact there were 30K participants running in this event. The full marathon was flagged off at 11.30 pm for the first group ( 2-4.00 hours finishing time ); I, in the second group was only flagged off at 10.40 pm. I set my target to at least keep pace with the 6-hour pacers but I failed miserably in the end.

I am not even qualified to stand behind this banner.

Seok Wan and Xin Yi both  running in the 10 KM category

I started the race very slowly perhaps 7-8 min/ km as there were too many runners in front and the track was too narrow. The crowds and the hot temperature made the earlier part of the race quite unbearable. The condition only improved after few km into the race when the crowds were more spread out. I ran slowly but already felt tired after 5 km into the race. I wondered how was I going to complete 42.195 km in the maximum time of 8 hours. With determination I dragged my feet on and stopped at every hydration point and banana point. I managed to swallow two bananas and 4 power gels I brought myself. Sat down to rest and stretched my legs at least 6 times and applied the perkindol classic twice to relieve my aching muscle on my legs and arms too. I was lucky this time as I did not suffer any cramps perhaps due to the prevention and also the slow pace and rest. I felt more tired walking than jogging slowly and I felt really great I overtook quite a numbers of walkers towards the end of the race by jogging slowly. The part of the race I enjoyed most was the East Coast beach section where I could feel the strong breeze from the sea and that really erased some of my tiredness and boredom running in the dark. Surprise to see so many campers at the beach as this is no more a common sight in Malaysian beaches due to insecurity. I really give my thumbs up to Singapore government for its ability to maintain such a peaceful surrounding for its citizens to live and thrive. Though I suffered mentally and physically most part of the race I was really relieved when I crossed the finishing line with grace by speeding past a runner in front of me. The sound of camera snapping  while I raced toward the finishing line made me feel proud of myself. Yes, I had completed my first full Marathon in a foreign soil.

After we had a good rest we proceeded to some sightseeing at Marina Bay. The Buildings at Marina bay are really amazing and elegant especially the Golden Sands Hotel, the Art and Science Museum, the Singapore flyer , the Garden by the Bay and finally the iconic Merlion. After some shopping at Bugis street, we took the MRT to the airport take a flight back to Kuala Lumpur. We took a cab using meter at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 and we were charged RM 100 just for a journey of 58 Km. Perhaps I should hired  a taxi by buying a coupon at the airport. At least I know the cost in advance.

Singapore Flyer

A Petal shaped Art Science Museum

Our race bibs with timing chips which failed to perform.