Last Saturday evening, the second Lead Up Run was held – to prepare participants for the OSIM Sundown Marathon, which takes place on 4 July this year. This run, which flagged off at 6pm, gave participants the opportunity to run together with the official Sundown Marathon pacers, for both the Half Marathon and the Full Marathon categories.
Participants waiting for the OSIM Sundown Marathon Second Lead Up Run to start.
Running loops around Nicoll Highway and Crawford Street
The route was a 7km loop that took runners through the Kallang and Lavender areas of Singapore, starting and ending near the F1 Pit Building – running along Nicoll Highway and Crawford Street.
The Half Marathon participants competed a mandatory two loops, with a third loop being optional for them – if they had felt that they could still carry on. The three loops would be about 20km. For the Full Marathon participants, they completed four loops – for a total distance of 27km.
Participants enjoyed the long evening run
Many of the runners enjoyed the long evening run and had thought that the running route was good. Said Dedrick Tan, 22, a Computer Engineering Student at Singapore Polytechnic, “The route was good and spacious. There was plenty of room for us to run and in terms of the gradient of the slops, the route was quite flat, so there wasn’t any difficulty in terms of having to go uphill and downhill. So I really enjoyed myself.”
Tan, who is aiming to complete the Full Marathon within five hours, felt that he was on good track to achieve his target after Saturday’s run, especially with the pacers leading him. He said, “And most probably, I will run with the five-hour pacers again, as they are a very joyful bunch of people who will be able to motivate me throughout on race day. As Sundown Marathon is an overnight race, they will also be good for when I am feeling sleepy.”
Pacers congregate together before the run begins.
Running in a group provided plenty of motivation
Another Full Marathon runner, Joshua Tan, 49, a commercial photographer, also agreed that running in a group definitely helps in terms of clocking the long mileages required to run a marathon. He said, “If I was running by myself alone, I think I would not have the discipline to run a Half Marathon distance for practice. Normally I run about 10km and I would automatically stop running. But for this run, there were the pacers to help us – so I ran a lot further than I normally would do for a training run. This will definitely help a lot in terms of my preparation for the Sundown Marathon.”
More fun to run as a group
According to another runner, Joao Rodrigues, a 30-year-old physics scientist, running together in a big group was definitely a much more fun experience too – compared to solo runs. He said, “This is the the first time I have run with other people. Running in a group definitely makes the run a lot easier, because you can talk to others and distract yourself and that really takes your mind off the pain.”
“I think I should join a lot more group runs from now until July, otherwise I will probably never finish the Sundown Marathon – as this was my first time running beyond 18km in a single run,” added Rodrigues, who is taking part in a Full Marathon for the first time at Sundown Marathon – after having been challenged by a friend to do so.
Not everyone is able to run alone for long periods of time
Sundown Marathon Pacer Wee Chong Yee, 29, definitely agreed that running in a group can help runners. He said, “Actually, running in a group helps a lot with motivation. Some people can run alone for long periods of time, but not everyone can do that. So it will be good to run with a few friends who want to conquer a certain distance together. That is great for pushing one another along during training runs.”
Runners generally did well at the Lead Up Run session
Wee, a senior systems consultant and the leader of the two-hour pace group for the Half Marathon at Sundown Marathon, felt that many of the runners had done well during the second lead-up run. He said, “The participants were diligently following our pace. And I’m glad that many of the Half Marathon runners following us, also had the motivation to carry on and do the optional third loop, when we had checked with them if they wanted to go through with it.”
“However, I felt that some of them may have run too fast ahead in the first loop – but by the second loop, they were getting more in-tune with their own pace. I think it’s important to adjust the pace according to what is comfortable for you, and not push yourself too hard at a pace that you may not feel at ease with, to last the distance,” continued Wee.
He added that the pacers though, were continuously looking back to check on the well-being of the runners following them. Wee added, “And if we found that they were falling behind, one of us would slow down with them and ask if the pace was ok for them. If not, we would advise them to drop their pace or see how they would feel after the next drink station. Or they could wait for the next pace group and join that one.”
A cute dog was at the run too
Clocking the weekly mileage is important to run well on race day
Clocking the mileage to last the distance on race day, is definitely very important in being able to run a Half or a Full Marathon in a good timing, Wee also added. “As a rule of thumb, it is good to have your weekly mileage about 2.5 times that of your race day mileage.” So for example, this would mean that the Half Marathon runners would need to clock about 50km of weekly mileage, in order to run a good race.
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