Probably my last race in a long time
I thought it’d be nice if I could end my running career (‘career’ rhymes with ‘like real’) with the last big race of the year, so I went ahead with the SCMS half marathon today, despite having just recovered from high fever, and not having trained in exactly 50 days (not due to laziness lah).
I was a good 28 minutes slower than last year, but I’m glad I managed to finish it. Still had fun at the Universal Studios stretch, still walked plenty (sometimes voluntary and sometimes not) and I felt slightly better at the finishing point compared to last year due to the weather being generally kind. (And I was easier on myself!)
Yes it's blur... no stranger luck today
The cheap thrill of participating in a race is to read its Facebook page after, for all the comments and complaints. This year’s SCMS was terrible, as usual. There was a standstill bottleneck 1.6km into the half marathon which took a few minutes to ease. The water points were few and always terribly crowded. (I only managed to get half a cup of 100-plus once. Sob. But got ice mountain at all 5 points lah.) We had to walk on muddy fields to collect the finisher’s medal, and it was so crowded sweaty shoulders kept bumping. I felt suffocated.
I read about hour-long queues for bag deposit, resulting in people missing the cut-off time so they didn’t even get to run. I thought my half-hour queue last year was bad enough. Well, all thanks to SCMS last year, I stopped bringing a clean t-shirt to races. Just have to contend with bare minimum in my small arm band (2x$10 notes, EZ link card, 2 keys and the iPhone), whatever I could manage in my two hands (glasses and energy gels), and a tiny towel for the sweaty face, stuffed securely in my sports bra. Sorry to whoever shares the MRT with my stink after the race. Blame SCMS.
But you already know. Despite all the complaints, we suckers will be back next year. SCMS is like a bad boyfriend who always gets another chance.
-
16km into the race, my heart dropped a little when the ambulance with siren on drove past on the block road. Just saw in the news that a young chap had died after completing the half marathon. Very sad.
