Another hot favourite for the ladies, the Great Eastern Women Run never fail to attract large number of female participants to join annually. From goodie bag, to the race itself, the race never fail to surprise the ladies.
Race Pack Collection
goodies inside the bag
Race bag
Race pack collection was held at Marina Square atrium over four days, there was ample time for the participants to collect the goodie bag. Beside a nicely designed sports bag with tons of goodies and coupons inside. A nicely designed event tee was also included inside, this year I have ordered a Tutu for my run. Often seeing runners wearing a tutu as a decoration for running, I have never tried wearing one myself.
Race Day
At the start line
This year , they made the right choice of holding it at the National Stadium, it seems like the rainy season had hit Singapore earlier. The 21.1Km was held back nearly an hour because of the lightning situation. The participants were already in the pen, but on the last check before flag off, the organiser informed that due to the CAT 1 ( lightning ) weather, the race has to be postponed till further notice. Participants were able to seek shelter inside the new covered National Stadium. Just minutes after the participants got in, it started to pour.
Waiting for the rain to stop inside the stadium
The organiser was also very prompt in informing about the start time, although it was still early and most of the exhibitors at the finishing pen were not in yet. Participants were still able to rest and go to toilets while waiting for further notice on the race start.
Finally moving out again
Flag off was 5:15 am and about 6:15 am the organiser opened up the pen for participants to go in again. The cool weather was really quite conducive for running. Some participants might have left as the announcement also said that medals and finishers’ tee will be dished out at 6:30am. The majority still very enthusiastic, still went ahead.
In the basement of the carpark at Stadium
The race route on the whole was quite well planned. However, looking at the social media, some of the ladies still lost their way due to unclear instructor given by the marshallers. I think one tip to adopt especially if you are a local runner, is to look at the race route first and try to visualise the prominent landmarks at the 5km points. Singapore is not really a big place so it is quite easy to navigate around. Another main bottle neck was faced when the runners cross the Kallang Bridge and merge together with the 10km and 5km participants. This point was really quite difficult to manoeuvre, especially when many of the shorter distance participants were there walking and taking pictures, it didn’t help that the passage way was rather narrow too.
On the roads
The finishing was inside the stadium itself. Medals and Tee shirts were packed into one plastic bag with breakfast, you can also grab some hydration and banana at the same time.
runners entitlement, the race medal is pretty nice!
There were also many perks at the end of the run. Pop corn, candy floss , snacks and many other food stuff were also available for the participants at the end. There was also photo booths for you to take commemorative photographs as keep sake.
With Kym Ng
Running friend Alice at the start point
Booths like body painting etc for the runners and their friends and family
Overall
I would say that this race was really enjoyable because the weather was just nice and even at one point of time I thought I was going to get PB! The location for the start and finish was good since it was sheltered and also there were ample space for carpark. At the same time the Kallang Wave Mall and the Kallang Leisure Park presents many eateries for runners who complete and have some breakfast with their friends.