Sunday, September 01, 2013
It's my 7th consecutive AHM this year, the only race event that I've been diligently doing without fail year after year. As usual, I turned up for the race with just 2 hours of sleep, with a little bit of help from caffeine.
Mention AHM this year, and I'm sure one grouse that is on everyone's minds, is the Great Bottleneck below the ECP, near Tanjong Rhu. It's a disaster to have such a narrow stretch of the park connector in the route. (The width is barely enough for 2 people shoulder-to-shoulder!) So you get thousands of runners virtually in a standstill, trying to squeeze into the small pavement. We were stuck for about 20 minutes, but there are runners who had to lose 30 minutes there.
This was the exact same running route unchanged from last year. The same thing had happened last year, and so I was already disappointed when I heard about the (same) route. But that notorious stretch seemed to be worse off this year. That was also not the only bottleneck, as many others were scattered along the route, and even in the 10km race route as well. Perhaps SBR can also be known as the Singapore Bottleneck Run.
The screwed bottlenecks aside, due credit still has to be given to the race organisers. In my opinion, SAFRA is the best organizer of running events, and I still think it is. I wouldn't have bothered coming year after year otherwise.
1. The plentiful water points and Salonpas aid stations at frequent intervals put all other running events to shame. I never had to look far whenever I had the slightest feeling of thirst.
2. Very thoughtful installation of speakers at parts of the route where they'd normally be grave quiet and demotivational. I'm talking about the Bay East gardens stretch. Stanchart organisers should learn.
3. Very creative taglines and motivational phrases along the race route. I'm sure great effort had been put into them. Example: "Think doing a half marathon is difficult? Try giving birth." and "You've done harder things than this before. (with diagrams of Jacob's Ladder and Long ropes beside)". But there's also the irony that the poster was reading "Don't Stop. Keep pushing", right at the great bottleneck -- many ended up slapping it or taking photos of it.
4. For the first time ever, there's a Finisher's Tee for AHM, and a great design too. Perhaps they're trying to stay competitive, as many other zapalang races are also issuing Finisher's Tee here and there nowadays.
5. Very well-organized race pack collection event one week before the race. Very thoughtful SMS reminders for the race pack collection event, and 1 day before the race. Very adequate deployment of (NS) marshalls at the running route and even nearby roads outside the route to guide human flow.
--------------------------------------------
Generally, it was a fairly good run, without cramps nor pain nor bad weather. The bottleneck caused a break in running momentum and cost precious minutes, but it's still a useful build-up to the full marathon some 13 weeks later.
Past timings for the last 7 years:
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2007 timing -- 02:14:29
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2008 timing -- 02:21:02
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2009 timing -- 02:17:38
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2010 timing -- 02:04:18
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2011 timing -- 02:07:33
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2012 timing -- 02:15:18
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2013 timing -- 02:24:41 (20-min bottleneck)
人生是黑白的.
6:06 PM <3
>>>
