My 2XU Challenge 2022 [5KM]

It's more than 2 years since I last put on a race bib and attended a physical race. In 2 years, alot had happened, alot had changed. And now, I have Melvin ❤️

Glad that the physical races are now coming back and I have registered a few of them already, looking forward to them! 🤩 

The race entitlement was delivered to us, so there's no need for a racepack collection 👍 While many of my friends had received their racepack, I started to panic because its only two days to event day. It was then I knew I have to check my letterbox 🤣 Sibeh kuku 😅 I might have received them earlier. It must be too much of Shopee and Taobao doorstep delivery that I assume that it would be doorstep delivery and forgot to check the letterbox 😅 Our entitlements included a free cap for the first 300 registered runners 😍

A very thorough race guide was emailed to participants prior to the race, it's very informative and there's 30% discount e-voucher to purchase 2XU items online or in their ION's store. We went to the 2XU store in ION and Melvin gets 3 Compression tights and saved quite an amount with the discount 😍

2XU Challenge was held on 28th August 2022, Sunday at Garden By the Bay East. There's the 5km and 10km categories. I registered for the 5km, and this time I participated as a pacer, completing the 5km in 40 minutes, 8 mins pace.

On race day, Melvin and I reached the Bay East quite early to support the 10km runners to flag off at 6.45am, while the 5km category only flags off at 7.30am. The fastest 10km runners will be back already before the 5km flags off. 

It was just like race event before the pandemic. There's portable loos lined up, baggage deposit, Pocari Sweat hydration point in the race village. Only fully vaccinated status are allowed to participate in the run and we need to show our vaccination status before we are allowed to enter the race village. 

I guess the pandemic had caused most people to get fitter. There's more participants registered for the 10km, 5km maybe is no kick already 😆

Weather was fine luckily as it had been raining the night before. Flag off was punctual and it's nice to see many familiar runners. There's ample hydration along the route. And huge thank you to the many photographers along the route for the awesome photos! 😍

Photo Credits: 岳影人 VC Studio

Before I knew it, we crossed the finish line back to the race village. Received a bottle of super cold Pocari Sweat, iced towel and the medal. There's a variety of fruits and Lao Ban beancurd for the runners after the race at the race village! 😋

Photo Credits: Peter L

I was glad my right leg was fine and my knee guard is giving it a very good support. I injured my knee a while ago and is still waiting for the MRI appointment in October. I'm just grateful I'm able to run now as a while back, each step I took to run hurts. It was a well organised event by Pink Apple and I hope my leg will be fine for the upcoming 2XU Compression Run next year! 💪

It's Melvin's first running event and he called this his introductory run. Like a happy kid, he told me he gotten a medal and it's my achievement that I got him into running as he don't like running in the past 😁

My Supersports 10 Mile 2019 International Run Series Thailand - Bangkok

Wooohoooo! Runcation! 😍 And it's Bangkok again this time to participate in Supersports 10 Mile 2019 International Run Series Thailand! 😍 Though I went Bangkok just a few months ago in February to shop, eat, sight see as well as to participate in Amazing Thailand Marathon but I'll never complain of having too many runcations! 😂

To me, a travel to anywhere overseas would be most awesome when a race is included. Now I would always search for races available in that country that I wanted to go to and go during race period 😆 Thailand is one of the countries that also have many many running races throughout the entire year and Thailand is just conveniently 2 to 3 hours flight from Singapore. Got bus to travel there also lah just that whether the buttocks, legs and back can tahan the journey or not 😆

While waiting for the flight to Bangkok, I spent the morning having fun exploring Jewel, visited the largest indoor waterfall on Earth and ate A&W, lucky me that it's just a fifteen minutes queue 😁

Supersports 10 Mile International Run Thailand is organised by Supersports( Thailand Number 1 sports retail store) and Skechers and part of the entry fees were donated to charities. There's award and prize money for the top 3 runners of each categories. 

It's a series of 5 races throughout the year and spread out over Thailand. Bangkok was the 3rd race of the series 😍 I didn't go to the first 2 races which was held in Hatyai and Phuket as I didn't know about this series of races before. There's still another 2 races of the series in Korat and Chiang Mai coming up. Chiangmai would be awesome as it will be held on 27 October during our long weekend period and also end October weather would be quite cooling for a shiok run! 😏 I didn't know of Korat before, Earth is huge, I should go about exploring more places through runcations! 😍 

Flag off was just conveniently outside Central World at 4.40am just 5 minutes walk from the hotel that I was staying in. Other than the run, I seriously enjoyed shopping at Central World and near by at Big C supermarket as well 😆 And of course I'd visited Erawan Shrine that's so close by. It's so nice to see Rey from Singapore at the run! 😍 Out of 10 thousand strong runners, Rey manage to spot me at the start pen!

The 5 miles runners were flagged off just minutes before the the 10 miles runners. There's just a mere slight 5 minutes of delay as many of the 5 miles runners were still heading to the pen to start their run. Though the 10 mile runners were all segregated into different pen queues but we ended up all into the same pen for flag off.

There's quite a couple of hydration points along the route with both cold water and Gatorade and the volunteers were so nice to hand out the drinks to the runners ❤ It was a warm and humid morning but still alright to run in as even by the time I completed the run, it's just the break of dawn and the sun wasn't out yet.

At first I was worried that I could run the wrong route as it's a 2 to 3 loops and some part of the route was repeated route but I couldn't differentiate the different streets as they look very similar or maybe because I'm not familiar with Bangkok.  It's many left turns, but the direction signs were all well displayed and prominent and I finished the 10 miles as 16.07km on my sports watch.

Though the road is not entirely blocked off for the runners, it was awesome traffic control by the many many traffic police and the road marshals throughout the entire course. Though I was caught thrice in the traffic lights but it isn't really a big issue for me as these were all just very short stop in less than 30 seconds and before I could use the time to catch my breath it's time to start running again 😆

Upon finishing the run, I was handed a super chio and colourful medal 😍 Then the volunteer passed me a food coupon and I headed to explore the race village.

I wondered did I actually participated in a running race or I had also just walked into a food festival 😆 There's fruits such as watermelon and bananas and there's so many food and drink stations in the race village! 😍 There's so many drinks station around that I am sure no runners would go back thirsty. It's just so fantastic to have choices of what to drink, there's ice water, Gatorade, Heineken which contains no alcohol and Meiji's High Protein Milk which I kept going back for more 😋

For the food there's also a wide selection of choices such as the Hainanese Chicken rice, pork congee, pork fried rice, fish maw soup and I settled with fish rice porridge as it looked delicious and it didn't disappoint me 😋 Though I have 3 coupons but I only utilise 1 coupon as I didn't want to be wasteful as I was already quite full and I needed to save some stomach area for coconut ice cream and Thai milk tea at Chatuchak Weekend Market at my shopping spree afterwards 😙

Yes yes, after the 16km run, my legs were not tired yet and could still go for jalan jalan 😆 I think it might be the magic of my new pair of Skechers performance shoes, it's super light weight and good cushioning that my foot doesn't feel so heavy and sore like it usually do after a long run!

I find the female runners in Taiwan and Thailand very pretty 😍 Even the pacers for this run were all so pretty that they can easily pass off as models or artiste. No bluff you,  you see you see:

(Credits: Supersports) 

I love how the Thais draw their eyebrows especially, it's drawn so nicely and they still look so pretty even after the long run. I tried drawing my eyebrows but at the end of my run they looked like melted ice cream 😆

While I was leaving to make my way back to the hotel to shower, I spotted this line of vans parked by the road side of the race village and they are toilets!
😍 Didn't thought of going in to have a look but I've heard that it's super clean and comfy and there's even music to enjoy while doing whatever business inside! Singapore races should consider using these types of van instead of the portable loo, could save plenty of time that was used to handle and transport the portable loo as well

Race results, e-certificate as well as race photos was out super efficiently on the race day itself ❤

So far for Bangkok's International Run I've participated in Amazing Thailand Marathon and this Supersports 10 mile run and they're both nothing to be fussy about these were the most awesome race I've participated so far in South East Asia 👍

Last year, I participated in Skechers Friendship Walk in Singapore and it was honestly one of the funnest event as there's many activities offered at the race village in exchange of umbrella as a gift and to stand a chance to win a whole year supplies of Skechers llshoes. Hopefully there's another Skechers event coming up soon back home in Singapore and looking forward to participating in more Skechers events! 😍

My Melody Run 2019 [5km]

Sometimes I find it super bo liao to travel the distance just to run a 5KM run 😂 The traveling time to the event site might even be longer than the run itself! Hahaha!! 😂 But I just need to remind myself, years ago when I started running, even a little more than 1km was far too long for me to run.

But it's My Melody Run and also the first My Melody Run on Planet Earth! 😍 Though its not my first Sanrio Run. My 2nd ever race that I've participated in was Hello Kitty Run in 2014, held at Sentosa. It was an unforgettable race as it was raining and I was damn poor thing carrying a bag and was almost like walk the entire 5km. New into races, I didn't know there's no baggage deposit 😂 The weather looked threatening machiam it would rain, at least we get to start but while after flagged off, it drizzled and then it became heavy downpour. Phew, it didn't got cancelled halfway through and I got my super cute Hello Kitty finisher medal ❤ Not a collector of race bibs back then and I threw away the cute cute meow meow bib 😭

Met Sabrina for the race pack collection at Novena on Saturday. As Sabrina was early she started queueing and I was showed a super sian photo as the queue was sibeh long like a snake 😨 Fortunately, the entire waiting time was at most 15-20 minutes. There's a super cute race bib, tee shirt and a plush toy 😍

Flag off was at Palawan beach in Sentosa at 8.30am on Mother's Day. There's only the 5km fun run category. On event day, I ran to Sentosa from Novena MRT station to clock some mileage with some of my hard core running friends who've even started their runs from Yishun. It was about a 8km run for me before the event. We reached the event site slightly before 8am, it was hot and the place was already sibeh crowded. The start pen opened at 8am and went in the start pen and were lucky to be in the first wave. We waited a good 30minutes till 8.30am under the sun to start. I felt that the race should start earlier at 8am as 8.30am was rather late and hot already. 

It was a run without a timing chip means our time wasn't recorded so we thought we should have fun unlike the usual runs where we usually run without stopping. Once flag off want to run also tough lah, too many people already and many families with kids and prams. A very warming family day for the mamas ❤ Happy Mother's Day! 😍

After the first km, the route was another good km of upslopes. We sweat a lot even we didn't really run. It's sunny, temperature high, should be high humidity as well. We were already looking for water point just shortly after 1km but almost 2km then there's the water point. 

(Photo credits: @alonslow) 

While some of our friends got caught up in the later waves, we took the opportunity to walk, talk, enjoy the route and take many many pictures while we wait for them to catch up 😊 Distance boards were available every km but the total distance was only about 4.5km. 

And that 2km water point was the one and only water point along the entire route 😢 Really not enough, think minimum also need 2 water points. Must consider there's many many kids eh. Adults can tahan a bit without water but the kids? And heard from a friend that the jia lat thing was that they run out of water at that single water point 😨 At least hope that after completing the run, there's still mineral water left for them. 

There's some activities and photo booths at the race village but we didn't explore around because everywhere people mountain people sea with long and scary queues. We left shortly for breakfast to fill our stomach 😊 

Anyway, the follow up on last week’s Forest Force 50 was super duper disappointing. WTF is a 10% discount on the next races by them! 😤 Not sincere enough to make things right and many runners were actually expecting either a refund or a free next race eh 😐 Many runners felt cheated and they just simply and conveniently push the blame to the marshals.