Happy New Year, everyone!

How did you spend New Year’s Day yesterday?

For me, I started the year with some exercise – by running.

Went on a fun group run to Coney Island, with the guys from Running Department.

A fun group run by Running Department

I had taken part in a fun group run organised by Running Department. This is a running group which had been appointed as as the official pacers for several key races in Singapore in recent years. These include the Standard Chartered Marathon and the Great Eastern Women’s Run.

As for the run itself, it had started at the public carpark, near Punggol Waterway Park, and carried on through Coney Island. It had been a very fun and informal 11.16km run. This special distance was chosen to mark the date – 1st January 2016.

Starting the run through the Punggol Waterway Park

Our Running Route.

The first four kilometres of the run took place through the Punggol Waterway Park. As we had started running pretty late, at about 8am, the temperature felt a little on the hot side, and it was also slightly stuffy and humid.

It wasn’t the best weather for running, but then on the other hand, since I had stayed up quite late to catch the New Year’s Eve fireworks the night before, perhaps the late starting time had been ultimately better. I could sleep in a bit longer!

But we were not the only ones though, enjoying the Punggol Waterway Park and Coney Island. I saw quite a few leisure cyclists, and perhaps a couple of other joggers there too. As well, a running race had been taking place at Punggol when we were there – the Mileage New Year Run.

Running throught Punggol Waterway Park.

Roughly at about the 5km mark of our run, we reached the Gallop Stables which is located at the Punggol Settlement. Our initial intention was to see some horses – but in the end this turned into a re-hydration stop instead because the horses had apparently been on New Year’s Day vacation! Yes, horses do have holidays too.

Raining when we reached Coney Island

After that, we U-turned and headed back towards Coney Island – and then that’s when it started raining. It had been pretty light at first but it slowly got heavier when we had reached Coney Island, roughly about a kilometre later.

A peep into the natural beauty of Coney Island.

However, it soon became apparent that this was going to be an off-and-on type of rain rather than a heavy thunderstorm. So in that sense, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing after all – as the rain did help to cool down the temperatures quite a bit!

Running the 2km loop through Coney Island in the rain though, had been a pretty muddy sensation, I must say! And the route was generally quite flat, but the rain didn’t exactly help – it reduced my visibility and irritated my eyes a little, but I still managed to cope.

But we weren’t the only ones trapped in the rain though – some groups of cyclists and others were, too. Perhaps we all had the same thought – in that it would be good to start the New Year with a little bit of exercise. So it was a pity that the rain had other ideas for us!

Some of the sights at Punggol we saw during the run.

Exiting Coney Island and completing the run

After exiting Coney Island through the Pasir Ris entrance, we ran through the roads of the Pasir Ris industrial area and passed through the Lorong Halus Wetlands and Punggol Waterway Park before eventually reaching our starting point.

The scenic streets of Punggol.

Though the rain appeared to have pretty much cleared up eventually, I must say this proved to be a very interesting start to the New Year! Perhaps the rain was a good thing too, figuratively – in that it had helped to wash away the negatives of the old year and bring about a fresh start to the brand new year – for all of us.

Click here for other scenic running spots in Singapore.

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