Taking place every year, the Singtel – Singapore Cancer Society Race Against Cancer is a race to save lives, aiming to raise funds for cancer treatment subsidies, welfare assistance, cancer rehabilitation, hospice care, cancer screenings, research, public education and cancer support group initiatives for the Singapore Cancer Society.

Since my mum’s diagnosis with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, in 2014, this is a running race that I have thrown my support behind, each and every year.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 event had to take on a virtual format. 

So instead of physically gathering together at a single location to run the race, runners would complete the race at a time and location of their choosing, syncing the race web app to their Strava accounts to log their results.

It was quite easy to sync my Strava account to the Race Against Cancer portal; I only needed to sign into my Strava account and give permission to the web app to have access to my Strava records for the period of the race.

The clocking period for the run was from 19 September – 27 September.

The distances available were 5km, 10km, 21km and 42km and by joining the race, runners would be wholeheartedly supporting the Singapore Cancer Society’s various initiatives, as a minimum donation is required to take part.

I had joined the 21km category.

It is not actually clear whether the distance is to be completed as a single run or multiple runs. 

In fact, I had only realised that the distance could be completed in numerous runs, after the clocking period had already begun. Perhaps this could have been made clearer upon registration.

But in my opinion, it does not count as a real half marathon if I clock the distance in multiple runs. So I sought out to do a half marathon in one go during the clocking period.

I did my 21km alone on a Friday evening in late September, running through East Coast Park towards town. It was a straightforward and pretty flat route that is convenient and near my place, comprising some gentle slopes, and a couple of overheard bridges. As well, a staircase was also involved at one point in the run.

When planning our own routes for longer distance virtual runs, sometimes crossing stairs and bridges are unavoidable because the roads will not be closed off for us, unlike in a real running race when we can have the roads entirely to ourselves.

I finished my 21km in just under 2 hours and 20 minutes. Definitely not my fastest 21km, but finding the motivation for pushing myself is always hard when I am running alone.

To give me the mental energy to keep on going, I had constantly reminded myself that I was doing this for Mum. If she can fight glioblastoma, then I can definitely complete a solo 21km run, no matter how hard it got along the way.

Unfortunately the humid Singapore weather didn’t help, but at least it got progressively cooler as I continued running, due to the slowly setting sun.

Upon ending the 21km run, I rewarded myself with a nice, refreshing cup of Koi bubble tea. Not the healthiest beverage around, but I felt that I had thoroughly earned it for my efforts.

The run was automatically uploaded via Strava to the event’s official web app so nothing was required on my part to upload the run. I thought this was very easy and simple, as it meant we would not forget to upload our run afterward.

Finishers of the virtual run would receive a t-shirt, a medal as well as a fundraising e-certificate to mark their achievements. 

The finisher stuff arrived in the post in the first week of December.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that this year, my category (21km) had been printed on both the medal and the t-shirt. 

This is because previous iterations of Race Against Cancer had featured the same medal and t-shirt for all runners, without any category distinctions.

Disclaimer: Unicorn not included in race entitlements.