The 2XU Compression Run 2024 took place last Sunday morning. I took part in the 21.1km run, which flagged off at 4:15am in the morning.

I reached the race precinct at the F1 Pit building at 3:15am. The race pens opened around 3:30am. The F1 pit building was filling up fast as more people arrived and I could see large crowds forming at the entrance. Fortunately for me, I arrived early.

I entered the race pen at around 10 minutes to go before flagoff. We were flagged off punctually at 4:15am. I was in Pen A. 

The toilet queues were very long. As a result, one of my friends who queued for the toilet ended up in Pen C rather than Pen A, which he had been seeded. This is because Pen A had already closed by the time he was done using the toilet.

The emcee was warning runners of a slippery mat positioned just after the starting arch. I was glad that I heeded his warning to tread carefully and watch my step. 

The route was a city route from the F1 Pit Building and taking runners around scenic sights of Singapore such as the Sports Hub and Marina Bay Sands. This year there was no East Coast Park in the route.

The race route was quite dark and the lighting was low. I had to slow down watch my step at several portions along the route.

There were also very narrow segments which could create bottlenecks along the way. One of these was the bridge at Kallang leading towards the Tanjong Rhu park connector. The bottlenecks weren’t too bad for me though because I had started in the first wave.

The humidity that morning was super high, with my Strava app clocking it at 95% humidity. This made it very challenging to run and hold pace. 

At least the water points were regular and good. These were positioned every 2km apart and served ice-cold water and Pocari Sweat. I really appreciated the fact that it was ice-cold.

The kilometre markers were pretty accurate, some were about 200m out while others were on point. The overall distance was quite accurate though with my Garmin clocking in at 21.06km when I crossed the finish line. 

I finished the 21.1km run in 1 hour and 56 mins. We recorded our preliminary results via text the moment we crossed the line.

We received a race medal and finisher tee when we crossed the line, along with water, banana and Pocari.

The post-race carnival was consisted of some interesting booths such as Pocari’s 360 degree 3D video booth which was quite fun. There were also a number of standees for photo taking too. I didn’t really explore much though because I was feeling quite tired after the run. 

RACE VIDEO