Review: Coached Race 2.0, An Unexpected 21km Personal Best

The Coached Race 2.0 took place last Saturday morning with three categories: 10km, 21km and 30km.

For each, there were two options, a virtual option that could be run anywhere, and an in-person no-frills option beginning and ending at east coast park carpark b1 in Singapore.

Coached is a running and triathlon programme to help athletes to race at their potential while enjoying training at the same time. I have been training with Coached for a few years now and I am finding their methods to be effective and efficient.

I took part in last Saturday’s in-person race, participating in the 21km category.

Buildup and preparation

Regarding the buildup over the past few months, I had been running and clocking my training sessions regularly, but because there have been a lot of personal matters to attend to lately, I didn’t feel as prepared or confident heading into Coached Race 2.0, as compared to the first edition of the Coached Race last October.

Nonetheless, as race day drew nearer, I told myself that I would see how I felt and simply take it and see how it goes. I had zero expectations this time around.

Race Day

Race morning soon dawned bright and early. With the 21km flag off at 6am, I was awake before 5am, got myself ready and cycled down to the Carpark B1 from my house.

I reached the race site at about 5.35am, had my temperature taken and did some quick warmup stretches before making my way into the holding pen.

Cones had been placed on the ground to ensure social distancing at the start.

With about five minutes to go, each runner lined up on a cone based on our target pace, with the fastest runners in front.

Flag off and target pace

We were flagged off sharp at 6am and everyone immediately charged off.

I didn’t actually have a specific target pace, but about less than a kilometre into the race, I ended up falling into pace with Chloe and Geok Seng who had been running at around 5:30 – 5:40 min/km for the half.

I felt pretty okay at that pace so I decided to just run with them and see if I could maintain this pace all the way.

The morning started off being pretty cooling and Chloe was pretty good company. It was great to run with someone. We could keep each other motivated and keep our pace in check.

As we ran, Chloe and I chatted a little bit, and running together definitely helped the miles to pass faster.

At the 5km u-turn point of the two-loop out-and-back course, which was at the wakeboard park, fellow Coached member Tien was there to cheer on everyone and was also giving out drinks. It was a pleasant and welcome surprise to see him there.

I didn’t take any hydration during the first 10km but back at Carpark b1, when we had completed our first loop, I had a bottle of drink parked there. I stopped and took a few swigs of drink before catching up again with Chloe and Geok Seng.

Second Loop

I think Geok Seng must have slowed down somewhere along the way; Chloe and I continued to run most of the second loop together, still holding onto a sub two hour half marathon pace.

At the wakeboard park, I picked up a bottle of water from Tien to hydrate myself and sipped the water while continuing running. I really appreciated the fact that he volunteered his time to give moral support and hydration to the runners.

The final stretch was harder and the weather was getting more muggy. But at least it was not as bad as the weather we’d had at the inaugural Coached Race. I still remember how unbearably hot it had been.