It has been a while since my running buddy K. and I laced up our trainers and hauled ourselves out of bed at an ungodly early hour to go run with a few thousand of our best friends so we were really looking forward to this 12K. We even trained for it. OK, not really, we ran 5K once together. In the middle of the mid-day sun, and I nearly died. But I considering we had never previously done a training run together, it was a huge step forward.
After a fun day of pool partying at the Icon the day before, we were not convinced this was going to be the best race we have ever run together. But, we were wrong. This was the BEST race to date. It was cloudy and cool out, there were plenty of people, the course was interesting, the medals were cool. And even though we didn't break any records, and missed our target time by 5 minutes, we had a really good time running.
Who loves getting up at 6am to run?
(The photographer by the way, gives 6am races a big thumbs down- but I really appreciate having such a great cheer leader and event photographer, best husband ever)
Can you find me? 
The race started and ended in the F1 Pits, which was pretty cool. But to make it cooler, out of nowhere they materialized a Ferrari and a Lamborghini to take off from the starting line in front of us. I knew this would make Dave slightly happier to be awake at 7am on a Sunday.
As we ran past the cars at the end of the pit, I gave the yellow lambo a little rub for good luck. I may never get to drive one, but now I have at least fondled one.
And we're off....
An hour and thirty six minutes later, here we are getting ready to cross the finish line.
1) My shoes are sooo cool. 2) These two sets of feet are awesome for carrying us happily over 12K.
All tired out after the run. Happy to be walking.
The champions.
It was a really fun race from start to finish. Even though it got crowded in some spots, it seemed like there was generally less bottle necking and pushing-shoving action than a typical race in Singapore. The water stops were not terribly well organized or staffed, but that is just to be expected here, and we managed to get water every time we wanted some, so no complaints there either. The clouds provided an unusually nice cool day for running and the little sprinkle of rain was actually pretty refreshing. While I normally don't love courses that have a lot of up-and-back covering the same territory multiple times (booorinnnngg), but this time I found it to be pretty inspiring to see all the super fast racers finishing the whole 12K in 40 minutes as we ran past the finish line around 6 or 7K in. They were realllly moving! I cannot even imagine what it must feel like to run that fast.
My only real complaint is that the route had 2 sets of stairs. 2! Seriously! The first set was pretty small and not too bad but the second set came at 9K in, and nearly killed my spirit. I watched K. sprint merrily up them like it was no big deal, but I took the weak way out and walked. Stairs do not belong in a road race people! Besides the stairs, and our battles at the water stations, we just kept running and running. And we both felt pretty great at the end. A much better performance than the 1/2 Marathon for sure.
A big thanks to K. for being an excellent running buddy, as usual. And also thanks to Dave for being a wonderful photographer and supporter.
Stay tuned for K & E's final race together at the JPM Corporate Challenge next week!
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