I had actually already made a promise to myself that I will not be joining any more charity runs, fun runs, or college-organised runs because my few experiences last year have not exactly been great. So far I have been able to keep my promise. But then, Luan asked Andrew and me to join Mah Sing Charity Run to support her friend who was going to be a first-time runner at this 4.7km fun run.
I was reluctant, but I agreed.
The Mah Sing Charity Run, organised by Mah Sing Group in support of Inisiatif Sokongan Autisme Nuri and the Little Yellow Flower Education Foundation for autistic children, was going to be held on the Saturday morning of 7 November at Lake Garden. I did not know what was in store, but because it was a fun run, there would be no top prizes. Our route was around the track within the park itself.
Race pack collection was held the weekend before, but they also offered race pack collection on the morning of the run itself. Because it was a fun run, I don’t think they wanted to be too strict about the race pack collection as they wanted to encourage people to participate in the event.
Then… Luan’s friend had to pull out!!! She had to go for a company team-building the same weekend. And Andrew and I had signed up to help her out!
But anyway, since we had already signed up… we might as well go.
RUN DAY 7 NOVEMBER 2015
I had stayed out the night before for a friend’s birthday dinner, and I did not think much of the run because after all, it was only 4.7km (which is a fraction of the distance that I’m used to).
I arranged to meet Luan and Andrew at 6:30am at Lake Garden, because the race pack collection booth would be open about 6:40am.
On Saturday morning, I must have hit Snooze a few times… because suddenly when I opened my eyes and I looked at my phone…. IT WAS 6:30AM!!! And then, while I was looking at the phone bleary-eyed, Luan’s text message came in: “We are here already.”
Oh my god! I quickly replied telling her that I had literally JUST woken up! I sent her my details to ask her to collect my race pack on my behalf. It was the fastest ever I had to get ready for a run!
I managed to get to Lake Garden before 7:45am, which was just in time because the charity run was scheduled to start at 8am.
They didn’t really start at 8am anyway. The emcees kept the crowd entertained with some light jokes – one of them had a humourous warm-up session involving “taichi” – “cut one watermelon in half – this half for you, this half for me…”, before we had the actual warm-up session led by a Fitness First trainer.
So because the run started a bit later, although I was later than I wanted to be, I still had time to check out a couple of the booths before the run started. Actually it was Luan and Andrew who were checking out the booths; I just joined them. I managed to score myself a free foldable bottle from Fitness First and a nice little keychain from Samson!
The run was flagged off a little after 8am.
Because I did not have enough sleep, plus it was a fun run, I decided not to push myself this time. You might say I even influenced Andrew and Luan to join me, hehe… one of the reasons I was very reluctant to run was because we had to go up the steep hill within Lake Garden, and I lacked the energy to attempt to run up it! So I walked all the way, while Andrew accompanied me.
Luan initially did try running. She zoomed past the participants, almost all of whom were also walking the route. But she stopped at the first “fun zone” which was the Bubble Zone.
The Bubble Zone had several buckets of special soapy water set up, where participants (especially young children) could attempt to make bubbles by dipping a rope circle tied at one end of a wooden stick into the water, and then moving it in air to create a bubble.
We didn’t play, but we did stop to take photos!
After that, Luan and Andrew joined me in a slow walk for the rest of the way. There was a water station as we rounded the corner, but they must have set it up in the morning before the sun was up, because later they were standing right in the heat of the sun. The poor volunteers had to stand in the wicked glare to administer the water to the participants!
Along the way, some volunteers handed us pieces of styrofoam cut out into jigsaw shapes, which we found out later that we were to stick on the giant board in the field (the one we took photo against earlier).
We had to go through TWO rounds of the route before we were allowed to collect our medal. And the total distance was NOT 4.7km. It was 5.3km!
All in all, the run was pretty challenging because the hill was really quite steep! But then, I didn’t run; I walked all the way, so I shouldn’t be complaining. The goodie bag was good as there were plenty of sponsors (as there always are, for a charity run). So even though I was reluctant to go initially, it was still a pretty good morning walk.
Thanks Mah Sing for organising a good run; it was a successful event, and it was for a good cause!
