SAFRA Singapore Bay Run 2013

I decided to participate in the 10km run primarily because it cost NSMen only $8.56 (U.P. $47.08), and I thought maybe I could get some nice freebies in the race pack. Sadly, the only thing of value inside was a miserable yoghurt bar, and the running singlet was just an army singlet as opposed to an event singlet. I guess I wasn’t the only one enticed by the low registration fee, given that there was a 74% increase in NSMen participation this year.

It had been a really long while since I ran 10km at a go, so I was unsure if I could complete the run without stopping to walk. Turned out that this didn’t become my own problem, simply because I was *forced* to walk a good number of portions during the route due to congestion caused by the sheer number of participants this year (and probably bad planning as well). Imagine squeezing 4 (road) lanes of people into 1 lane, and it didn’t help that there were so many people walking and blocking the way. At the finishing line, there was this massive jam of people that started 100m before the line, so we were all inching ahead almost as though we were trying to squeeze into an MRT train at peak hour. It was a joke.

I ended up with a timing of 1h 07m 23s, which put me at the top 42nd percentile of all the 10km participants. Not too difficult to beat the next time, IF there is a next time.