Tonight I joined just over fourteen and a half thousand of my closest friends for the Singapore leg of the JP Morgan Challenge. http://www.jpmorganchasecc.com/events.php?city_id=2&page=events011711
We had put together a team of 16 runners to represent Quintiles East Asia. The Social Club very kindly agreed to suppor the event. Some of the money raised was going to charities in Singapore. Selection criteria for the team was the first 16 to respond to the general invitation and the spots were snapped up within minutes of the announcemnet going out.
The race was scheduled to start at 6:00 pm, so the plan was that we would leave work at 4:00 pm to get from Science Park I, to The Esplanade in plenty of time for the start of the race. Too easy. I arranged for a quick team photo shoot at 3:50 pm with a view to being on the road at 4:00. As usual, with the best laid plans........ Only half the team could make it for a photo, which was fine, but those who could straggled in like Brown's cows. (No disrespect to the parents of the Father-in-Law with the last name of Brown, who ran a dairy down at Dapto). Eventually we got a couple of happy snaps and we were off. One of the team had volunteered to arrange a cab for a few of us and I was happy to accept the invitation to join them. However, she did not let us know that when offering to book the cab, she was planning to do it in real time, not in advance. So we ended up waiting for quite a while in the lobby of our building waiting for a cab to come. And the minutes ticked by.
Further to this, half the male team were seconded to a teleconference with colleagues in the UK and Europe which was scheduled to start of 4:00 pm. This was a bit of a downer, because it put them under extreme time pressure getting to the start. All things considered the whole team result was not looking too hopeful in prospect.
I did get to the start line in plenty of time as it turns out. A leisurely stretch followed by a few 30 m run throughs and I was ready to go! I made my way up to the starting area, which was on Esplanade Bridge, and found a spot about 15 m from the front of the pack. This was around 5:20 pm. I then started meditating in standing position waiting for the start of the race. In the crowd on the bridge, a couple of hours after very heavy rains had passed over Singapore that afternoon, it stated to get hot and very steamy. I worked up quite a sweat, and I started to wonder if I had managed my fluids properly.
About 20 min to go I was joined by team mate Jonathan. The excitement was building, the organisers played "Eye of theTiger" over the PA and we were getting seriously warm at this stage. And the crowd pressed forward with about 10 minutes to go before race start.
Fortunately, the race did start on the stroke of 6:00 pm and we were off. From our position toward the front of the pack we had a pretty easy time of it. There were some quite narrow sections on the course, but we had enough space to get through without being slowed to a walk as was the case for runners further back in the crowd. I lost Jonathan in the first 200 m. I went one way around a slower runner, he went the other way and when I saw him next, he was about 5 m ahead of me and I never got close to him from that point on.
After about the first km, there was enough room that I could run without any risk of tripping over someones feet or being tripped up in turn.
I ran comfortably within myself for the first 3 km and then I started to feel the pinch. The 3 km mark on the course was very positive psychologically, because it indicated that I was already past half way through the course and this sustained me for the next one to one and a half km. After that it was just tough. The heat and humidity, together with fatigue I am still experiencing from either a virus I suffered or the half iron man I did last month, really stareted to bite and I seriously started to slow over the last km. Luckily, I was nearly home by this stage and was just able to roll the legs over so as to get me to the finish line. It was not a great time, but I took nothing home with me, so I need to content myself with that.
Unfortunately for the team result, some of our other, better runners got really badly held up in the crowd. Those who attended the teleconference with our overseas colleagues did not leave the building until just after 5:00 pm. Then there were significant problems with parking which meant that they just got to the Esplanade as the race started and were forced to make their way to the back of the field of 14,555 competitors. Needless to say, their contribution to the team result was greatly hindered, to say the least.
After the race, I made my way to the hawker centre known as Makansutra at Gluttons Bay. There I met up with team mates Jasmine, Rob and Jonathan for dinner. We had a wonderful meal consisting of satay, BBQ Chicken Wings and fried stingray with fried rice, washed down with cold Tiger beer. A perfect way to end a great Hot April Night in Singapore.
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