Taking place 22 Feb on a Sat, usual place at Bedok Reservoir. This was the yearly SA Wings Cross Country race where I run with many kids from schools.
Every year, Chuan Heng from the MR 25 will kick start this race from the MR25 running club calendar. It is very vomit blood race but yet a goo test of where you stand in terms of running speed. Actually, one round of Bedok reservoir is only 4.5Km for the inner round, so to make up for the extra 0.5 K, we had to run up a smaller slope or rather an extra small loop. Every sec every meter counts for a speed work.
Start Point
At the start line
I am under the women veteran category, the flag off is at 08:05am ,but our organiser requested us to come earlier before the men start at 07:45 am to collect the bibs first. All of us were dressed in the MR tiffany blue top and bottom was up to us. There was nothing much at the Passion wave Bedok reservoir, although it is quite a nice building.
We gathered at the usual Dragon boat spot near the finishing line. I did a short 5 km before the start. One of the male members suddenly fainted into fits after he warmed up, luckily it was not big thing, just that he hurt his head and was bleeding. Mens flagged off at 07:45 am and we all walked together to the start line for the flag off.
Getting my bib
Actually, I feel going for the speed is rather stressful and exciting, I actually felt my adrenalin shooting up. Finally our turn came 08:05am, once the horn went off I felt a surge of excitement. The top ladies were very fast going like 4 min pace. I tried my best to keep up the speed but towards 3km I felt sluggish. This year, there were lesser participants so all the runners were spread out. Its much better this way because the lane around the reservoir can be rather narrow.
sun show up!
The Bedok Reservoir is predominantly gravel loose sand road but just that it does not have much elevation. The run can be rather hot as the reservoir is in the East and in the morning it gets a bit too sunny.
Ending it
Cameo!
At the last part towards the finish line I am already very breathless, was a bit unhappy that one lady charged over me in the very last sec and because of that I was not top five. But alas I guess I should have put up a fiercer front so she cannot catch up. This race does not give out medals only for the winners. This year the masters ladies were more lucky, we managed to get a placing for our teams. The MR 25 runners have 2 teams and we were the 2nd runner up.
With the guys
With the team medal
I wanted to leave first as I have an appointment, but decided to wait for the prize giving just to cameo with my team mates. So I did another 4Km cool down while waiting for the results to be concluded. It was really quite fulfilling and fruitful morning.