Did not thought about joining this race at all, then just got spurred by one of the swimming friends, Fidel Costa. He was running the Bukit timah summit all the time and I realised that he was joining this activity.
As the name of the Trail race, Wild Boar, majority of the run is to be done on trails. It cost $32 for all the 25km, 45km and 70km categories. I took on the 45km race because I felt 25km a bit too short and 70km is really too much for me to complete within the Roll of Honour timing. But after signing up, I realise that all 3 categories has its difficulty for getting into the Roll of Honour. So I just take it easy and just want to complete it.
Preparations and Recce
Green corridor ending at the Rail Mall
Bukit timah hill
Being not that great trail runner, especially unfamiliar with the trails in Singapore, I decided to break up the route and recce it.
I decided to do the run on 17th September 7am, just a day before my birthday. Its maybe to reward myself as a birthday present and a motivation to finish the race. The more challenging part for me is the Mandai area and the Bukit Timah summit. Usually, I take the main road up the Bukit Timah Hill. Taking the Taban trail reminded how terrible the stairs were in the hill. I actually recced 2 times at the BTH just to make sure I do not get lost in this part. 2 times, I saw the crazy wild Fidel doing this 3 parts Wild Boar race. Parts by parts I went to the Zhenghua Park, Chestnut area to Mandai Trail. As for the Macritchie part, I was quite familiar since I had been running there for almost every wednesday since last year.
Race Day
Snowy Red a sweet by Petite Pantry! I bring these for my runs
Pipeline trail
Taban Trail in Bukit timah
Rand , another tortoise runner was able to join me this time as his friend was not able to company in another intended run for the 45km. It was good, as he is more familiar with the summit portion, this would save my time to have to navigate. But another trouble is that he runs too fast. While Richard, another swimming friend of mine, joined for the first 20km from Macritchie to Summit and Dairy farm.
To speak the truth, after the summit, I felt exhausted at the same time pain in the leg starts to kick in. Its been a long while since I seriously did a trail race. The weather was hot on that day, but we pushed on. It was about ten am when we reached Zhenghua side. Into the Mandai trail was quite humid but still bearable. Rand was ahead of me mostly, but I caught up with him every now and then. We made a little wrong turn at the Chestnut side, despite me having recced it. But still managed to get back on track.
At the summit
Mandai side
Half way point
Inside the Mandai trail, I was still trying to go as fast as I could thinking that I could probably make it in time for the Roll of Honour. But as I came out of the Mandai Trail into the pipeline area, I was already into 5 hours and 50 minutes, and I have another 7 more Km to go. I thought I would not have been able to make it and decided that I should just take it a little easier. Already the sun was scorching above me. A final stop before I hit the pipeline, I made a stop at the Chestnut service area to refill for the last stretch. I have another 7 plus more to go and met Rand there, whom I last saw was at the turning point of the Mandai Trail. Being faster, he headed off first while I took my time.
Final Leg
End Point with Rand
Artsy
It was almost 2pm when I reach back. Rand was right, as he was just aiming to finish latest by 2pm. He was about 20 min ahead of me, and was rather well rested by the time I came back. We took a final shot before heading for lunch. This is really my first time doing a trail race in Singapore as my first one was the Bromo Marathon in Indonesia. It pose some sort of challenges for me also as the terrain are rather different from the real mountains overseas. Well, I guess I would need to train up more for the next race and hope to make it for the roll of honour.