the aware outdoor challenge

the race started in a frenzy for wendy and me cos we almost couldn’t make it to the start point in time.

well.. it started with my computer crashing. then i decided to fetch my uncle to the computer store to get the stuff, and since wendy is not here yet, we sat down for lunch and waited for her.

turns out that the chicken rice was really good (it usually is but my uncle and aunt hardly gets to eat). and so, we polished one whole chicken off between the 3 of us. that lead me to being late for jayden’s baby shower, plus the lack of parking in serangoon.

couldn’t really do a proper catch up with everyone else at the shower. sorry girls! had to rush off to the run.

i missed a turn on the way to east coast park and had to detour. by the time we reached, parking was also an issue. we quickly got ready, changed into our gear and walked towards the booth to drop the lucky draw nos. that was when we heard the announcer saying that the race is starting in under a minute.

and so, before we know it.. we are in the race. we didn’t had the chance to warm-up. since the secondary school days, this is prolly the longest run i have attempted since.

with the heavy lunch and all, i started having stitches after the first 1km or so. pushed myself to go further and i simply refused to let myself come to a walk. i was suddenly reminded of my athletic days where i had to train like mad to boost up my endurance.

i kept telling myself i can do it, and so.. i ran/jogged non-stop for about 6km, pushing wendy along with me. i realised i could do it without concentrating on the pain that was building up, but the little milestones i was setting whilst running. that lamp post, another hundred more steps, the water point.. and i finally did manage to cover a distance that i didn’t expect to.

towards the final stretch, things got a little slow and the terrain wasn’t as smooth and i slowed to a brisk walk. my heart was thumping madly and there was a slight pain in my chest. i didn’t want to push myself further, keeping in mind the images of the girl who collasped halfway through the run. the weather was unbearingly hot with the sunset in my face, and i was gurgling my mouth constantly with the bottle of water i was holding with me to maintain enough moisture for my bod.

and so, there was also a point of time where i totally gave up and decided to walk even slower. i kinda lost my mental power and gave in to my body, i kept teling wendy that we’ll walk to the finishing line.

oh well. we ended up sprinting the last stretch when the start/finish line was in view.

we finished the race in about 50+mins. the tired wendy forgot to stop her stop watch so we didn’t know the exact timing we ended the run in.

and i got a nice surprise! i sat down and rest a bit, drank water and munched on the bread… and a while later, i suddenly saw my uncle who came down to take pictures of me with his dslr!

well, the run was over but still, we took some pictures. turns out, everyone was here to come see me! 🙂

i didn’t end up blading with the dec and wen cos i had to go for a dinner with my family before my uncle and aunt flies off this morning. and so, that was my saturday afternoon. a really fulfilling and happy one. 🙂