Sheares Bridge Run and Army Half Marathon 2006

It was a record number of 16,000 half-marathon runners this year, an annual event organised by SAFRA. I believe at least a quarter were from the army, judging by the number of young chaps that overtook me in their army singlet.

Unlike the 6km/10km run, my buddy KC & I manage to cross the starting line within a couple of minutes after some bigshot from the army flag off the run. But there was a bottleneck at the Maxwell road to ECP exit. Only one lane was catered to the runners and it was like north bound CTE during the evening peak hour. Fortunately, we manage to get onto the ECP route after 3 to 4 minutes.

Some of the roads were not fully blocked and some of the runners had to stop when the police direct the traffic to move on. It sort of interrupted the momentum for some. We didn't really go into the Orchard Road as what was advertise. We merely jogged past the Park Mall shopping complex and turn into Cleamenceau Road.

I had my feeling of exhaustion after two hours. My first sign of muscle ache came somewhere after the 17 km marker. I end up walking and jogging intermittently, stopping a few times to stretch my leg muscles. As I jogged past the new Parliament House towards the finishing line, I had my first experience of leg cramp. Finally, after recovering from it, I pulled through and reached the finishing line just under 3 hours!

It was below my target of of two and a half hour but nonetheless a good training ground for my StandChart run at the end of this year. 97 days and counting down...