A charity run held in support of Guide Dogs Singapore Limited, the Run for Light this year was originally meant to have been a physical running race scheduled on 22 February at Punggol waterway park, but due to the Covid-19 situation across the world, it was postponed to 25 July.

However, as the months went past, there was no improvement in the Covid-19 situation, in fact many countries began to get worse, and Covid-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation in March.

So Run for Light then unsurprisingly became a virtual run.

But unlike most other virtual runs whereby runners are given a period of time i.e. one month, to complete the run at a location of their choice and simply submit their run record via a link and receive their bling afterwards, Run For Light tried to mimic an actual running event as best as they could.

So at the original race flag-off time, which was supposed to have been last Saturday at 5pm, the organisers live-streamed a flag-off via Facebook Live, and at the same time, the official race app – for runners to record their race – went live.

Runners were given from 5pm Saturday until 11:59pm Sunday to complete their 5km or 10km, in a single recording. That should be more than enough time.

According to the virtual race instructions, runners were supposed to have claimed their race profile prior to the race, and on race day, simply click the ‘start’ button to begin their race.

However there was no need to end the run because the app will automatically stop recording at 10km for me, as I had signed up for the 10km category. 

I thought that this was pretty nifty and useful, as it completely ruled out the possibility of forgetting to stop the recording. A few times in the past, I have actually forgotten to stop my Garmin after a race!

I began my Run For Light race at about 6pm on Saturday evening, which is a good time as it is generally not too hot at this hour. 

My running route was a simple out-and-back course from my house to East Coast Park and back, comprising of one traffic light. What could go wrong, I had thought at the time.

However, I quickly realised that the precious seconds spent waiting at the traffic light, had not been the worst of my worries. 

This is because in the evening, East Coast Park is a very crowded place, chock-a-block with cyclists, runners and walkers and I had to constantly watch out for them and waste energy swerving around them as I ran my race. 

As a result, it was quite hard to maintain a solid pace and remain constantly aware of my surroundings too. Perhaps I should have picked a more quiet location to do my race!

Nonetheless I am happy with my effort, completing the Run For Light 2020 in an official timing of 58 minutes 02 seconds. It is three minutes off my personal best 10km time and better than I had expected, considering the conditions that I had run in.

I took the mandatory photos posing with my medal and tee after completing the Run for Light.

Apparently the bling had arrived in my postbox the day before the race, which is not common. It was nice to know that the organisers had trusted the participants to get the race done and earn our medals.

When the race had ended on Sunday night, my timing had placed me as the 11th woman to finish the race. Well, I will take that; it’s definitely one of the better rankings that I have had. I guess I do miss racing, so I had tried harder when running this virtual event, in order to see where my fitness level was at.

While the app helped to make the Run for Light virtual race into a more interesting experience, I still hope to be able to run the actual 10km race, hopefully in 2021 when the Covid-19 pandemic clears and a vaccine is found. 

While the Run For Light rankings and an exclusive race app help to add to the feeling of being part of a race, nothing beats the real thing, complete with the crowd, mood and atmosphere.