I have been training with Coached for the past few years.

Led by Ben Pulham, a former professional triathlete, Coached is a personal training programme for runners and triathletes to optimise and make training enjoyable.

Click here to view the Coached Running Race 2020 Photo Gallery.

Unfortunately due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, almost all races had to be cancelled in 2020 and athletes were becoming disillusioned with the lack of a goal race.

So Coached decided to put together a small, no-frills running race for athletes based in Singapore. Athletes based overseas could take part in the race virtually and submit their results.

This race took place early last Saturday morning from 5:30am at East Coast Park Area B1 with a 10km and a 21.1km category and attracted a small crowd of runners who wanted to put their fitness to the test.

I participated in the 21.1km category.

Organised strictly for Coached members, the race had been free to join, but runners had the option of purchasing a hydration package from Precision Hydration, one of Coached’s partners.

Runners had been divided into various waves based on our estimated running paces and finish times. Both the 10km and 21.1km categories were flagged off together.

I was in the fourth wave which was flagged off at 5:45am. Temperature taking was taken prior to each wave flag off and runners stood one metre apart in the start pen, in line with social distancing guidelines.

The route was a straightforward 10km out-and-back loop course from Carpark B1 to the cable ski park and back.

And the 21.1km route was two loops of the 10km route, plus a little extra to make up the 21km. 

Though there had been an official start line and an estimated finish line, each person’s actual finish line depended on their GPS watch and when their GPS hit 10km or 21.1km. This would ensure that nobody’s distance ran short.

With no races to look forward to, I treated the Coached race as a key race, aiming for a good timing.

My goal was to run under 2 hours for the half marathon.

There had been some fanfare at the start point, with both athletes from other waves as well as spectators cheering. They were mainly volunteers from Coached.

So I took off at a strong pace, aiming to run even splits of around 5:30-5:40 per kilometre.

I am proud that I managed this quite well throughout the race – but it was no easy feat because the weather was very unforgiving. It was a particularly humid day and the sun came out very early too. It may have helped to combat the heat, if the race had started half an hour earlier.

Thankfully there were other runners in my line of sight at this point whom I could chase and pace myself against. This helped me not to lose my focus.

When I reached the u-turn point, there were a couple of cheerleaders, also volunteers from Coached, stationed there to give the runners moral support and keep us going. I really appreciated this and it helped to push me forward.

The route was pancake flat throughout, so there were no hills to contend with along the way. This helped with my pace.

I also appreciated the fact that along the way, runners were cheering and egging each other on as we passed each other. This too, helped to keep me going.

I had a bottle of isotonic drink at the 10km point. This marked the end of the first loop and I rehydrated myself before embarking on my second loop.

This had been the only hydration station along the route. Water fountains, however, had been available at other parts of the course.

The second loop had been much harder than the first though, because there were less runners out on the course.

Due to the same start time for both categories, the 10km runners had all finished with their run, and the 21km runners had spread out more. I found myself running alone at times and it became harder to keep other runners in my line of sight. 

It was difficult to prevent myself from slowing down, and took plenty of sheer determination.

The last few kilometres were especially a struggle mostly because of the heat. My heart rate was soaring at this point and I contemplated slowing down many times. I still don’t know how I managed not to.

There was fanfare at the end point and buoyed by this, I even managed to sped up a little.

I crossed the finish line in a timing of 1:58:09 according to my watch, my target achieved.

This timing is also just six seconds slower than my all-time personal best half marathon time of 1:58:03, which was achieved in 2017.

So I know that I still have the ability to run a sub two hour half marathon, even though I may no longer be clocking anywhere near as much running mileage as I did back in 2017.

I spent a while catching my breath at the end point and tried to rehydrate myself as best as I could, before taking a slow recovery walk/jog over to the Starbucks at Parkland Green to join some buddies for coffee.

It had been a good race and I am happy with the way that everything was organised. Despite being a no-frills race, all aspects had progressed seamlessly and there were no hiccups along the way.