Last Saturday night, Singapore played host to the final leg of the ASICS Relay 2019. 

Organised by Infinitus Productions, the 2019 edition of the ASICS Relay series spanned four different cities, beginning with Jakarta in June, Bangkok in August, Kuala Lumpur in September and finally, in Singapore this month.

Saw 1,500 teams taking part

And the Singapore event, which is now into its third edition, had more than 1,500 teams racing in total, in celebration of fitness, friendship and teamwork. 

Beginning and ending at the Bayfront Event Space, the Singapore race also saw the newly-introduced Buddy for Two Half Marathon category, alongside the Full Marathon Relay and the Half Marathon Relay.

For the latter two categories, four persons are required in order to form a full team.

Ran at the Full Marathon relay

This year, I joined the Full Marathon Relay together with three of my parkrun buddies – Martin, Dan and Renee. 

I was the first runner so I reached the race site at about 4:30pm to begin the relay for my team. The official race flag-off was at 5pm.

Drizzling

In the hours prior to the race, it was raining quite heavily, and it continued to drizzle slightly as I made my way towards Bayfront. Considering what Singapore has been like lately, I had been expecting warmer weather, so I was quite happy that the rain had come, to help cool the temperatures down.

Food for sale

Upon reaching the race site, I had a quick look to see what was available there, while waiting for the start pen to open.

I quickly noticed that there was a wide range of food available for sale – and these included items such as chicken, fries and burgers, as well as bubble tea, cupcakes, and interestingly, low-carb Keto gelato. 

None of the items seemed cheap though, for example, it was priced at $5.50 for a small scoop of the gelato.

Queuing up to start

I went over to queue up to enter the start pen at about 4:40pm. The start pen didn’t open till 4:50pm, and when it did, everyone immediately started running inside, even though the race had not begun yet.

At 5pm, a warm-up was conducted, followed by some bantering from the race emcees, and it turns out that the actual race was not flagged off till 5:11pm, a slight delay.

I admit that I had been feeling pretty restless in the start pen, as I just wanted to get my legs up and going.

Finally Time To Run

I had lined up near the front of the start pen, so when it was finally time to start running, I ended up running faster than I had originally planned. 

Running a bit too fast

Both the congestion at the beginning as well as the cooler post-rain weather may also caused me to run at a faster pace too.

As a result, though, my heart rate was higher than I had wanted and it quickly reached my Steady zone.

That was when I realised that I had to back off with the pace – and slowed down a little. Despite the cooler temperature, it was unfortunately still humid, after all.

Straightforward race route

The race route itself had been straightforward enough. It took place mostly on the park connectors, taking us from Bayfront Event Space towards Marina Bay Sands, Gardens by the Bay and u-turning shortly before hitting the Bay East Gardens.

Marshals were great

A marshal were stationed at both the u-turn points for the half marathon and the full marathon category. They were very attentive.

It was crucial that they did their job well, too, because runners from the half marathon teams were supposed to u-turn after about 1.5 kilometres, but runners in the full marathon and Buddy of 2 categories were to carry on for another couple extra kilometres. 

For example, when one Buddy of 2 runner had mistakenly u-turned at the 1.5 kilometre point, the marshal loudly called for her to come back. The marshal had been very alert for spotting her bib and correcting her mistake before it had been too late.

Besides the route marshals, the traffic marshals were also attentive in terms of how they kept the motorists at bay to allow runners to pass at the traffic junctions.

This had been crucial because the roads were not closed off to traffic. Instead, runners were tasked with running on footpaths.

Unfortunately the marshals were not able to do anything with the human traffic along the way, though. 

On a typical Saturday evening, Bayfront is always a very crowded place with visitors and tourists everywhere, and as a result, there were several occasions when I had to swerve and avoid pedestrians who were in my path.

It might have helped if the organisers had used cones to mark out a path exclusively for runners along the park connector areas, unfortunately this was not the case though.

Drink Stations

Along the way, there had been a couple of Pocari Sweat isotonic and water stations along the relay route.

But I didn’t take any of the hydrations, so I cannot comment on whether the drinks provided were cold.

Second half of the race

The latter part of the running route brought us towards The Float @ Marina Bay and the Esplanade areas before making our way back to Bayfront.

What I always like about doing evening races in Singapore is that as I run, it gradually becomes cooler as the sun sets – as opposed to morning races, when I always find myself attempting to beat the sunrise and therefore, the heat.

At one point though, we had to climb up a staircase, which I allowed myself to walk up, before resuming my running again.

Sometimes, running events that utilise this staircase would insert a ramp at the area to make it easier for runners, but the ASICS Relay did not do so.

But apart from this staircase, the rest of the race route had been flat, thankfully.

Finishing the Race

I ran by the Fullerton Bay hotel and the NTUC Centre, this was around the 10km mark, and then I turned the corner, to see the ASICS Relay transition areas and carnival stretched out in front of me. 

Passing on the baton

Following the signs for the Full Marathon relay runners and heading towards the transition area, I took off the team baton, which had been in the shape of a wristband, which would record our official race time, and looked for my team-mate Martin in the transition pen, to pass him the baton.

I soon spotted Martin waving to me. Handing him the baton, I then headed to the Athletes Welfare Area and picked up a bottle of water and a can of Pocari Sweat.

According to the official ASICS Relay app, my timing for the 10.5km had been 58 minutes 43 seconds. I was pleasantly shocked at this timing.

Games at the race village

After grabbing some dinner from the buffet catering over at the VIP tent, I then went to the race village and had a good look around.

There was a game whereby participants could collect eight stamps from the various activity booths in order to redeem a mystery prize.

As I now had time to kill while I waited for my team-mates to complete their race, I decided to take part in these quick games. 

The activities were simple and these had ranged from fishing up a random item from a claw machine, a Dance Dance Revolution game lookalike, trying on a pair of ASICS shoes for a short sprint, and a Pocari Sweat photo booth.

Fortunately the queues were not very long, so I played them all, and the mystery prize turned out to be a blue metallic ASICS water bottle.

Hanging out at the MIX Mood Bar

After that, I headed over to the MIX Mood Bar where beer and cocktails, along with snacks, were served. I wanted somewhere to sit down, so I answered a short survey, after which I was entitled to a free cocktail.

As well, seaweed rice crackers were also available as snacks, too, and I thought that these tasted delicious.

Throughout the evening, I spent most of my time, off and on, at the MIX Mood Bar, where I soon discovered that there were bar games to keep runners entertained. 

I didn’t play any of these bar games myself, but I watched a few of them and they included a stacking game as well as a giant Jenga. The prizes were quite attractive though and these included movie vouchers and Starbucks gift cards.

Martin also hung around inside the bar once he was done, and we both sat down, chit-chatting and resting there, as we continued tracking our remaining team-mates.

As the evening wore on, I tried to get a bit of rest while I waited for Dan and Renee, but the race village seemed to be pretty noisy, with the emcee at the MIX Mood Bar apparently trying to drown out the voice of the emcee over at the main stage area, and vice versa. So I couldn’t really rest.

Nonetheless, some of the activities at the main stage area, had included Star Wars inspired lightsaber workout that looked fun, but I didn’t take part in these, because I was too tired to do any more exercise for that night.

Our Team Finishes 

It was 9:40pm when our team’s last runner, Renee finished running and she crossed the finish line. Our team’s official overall timing had been 4 hours 29 minutes 25 seconds.

Photo Taking sessions

With our newly-earned race medals, we all went photo-happy immediately after completing the marathon, heading over to several of the photo booths on site to take pictures.

The Pocari Sweat booth had been pretty fun, with two gigantic sized mock Pocari Sweat bottles to play with as props.

There was also a cool and interesting 180-degree moving photo booth, which had somewhat reminded me of the moving photos from Harry Potter’s world.

Supper and ice cream

We hung around to wait for the lucky draw at about 10:20pm and soon after that, we left the race site, taking the train over to the 24-hour McDonald’s at City Hall to chat over a late-night supper and ice cream.

Our Team All Had Lots Of Fun

We had all enjoyed ourselves at the ASICS Relay.

It was a well-organised race and a great evening out for my buddies and me. I am glad that my team mates and I all had a fun experience at the race.

Thanks to ASICS Singapore for the team slot.