It was 5.30am on a cool Sunday, yet I was already up. Today would be my first time joining some of the SGRunners forumers for a Botanic Garden Run (BG Run). I’ve always wanted to find people to run with because it can get rather mundane running alone at times. After not being able to join a few previous runs (due to work commitment and poor weather), the sky finally showed mercy today by not raining in the morning.

All excited, I packed my stuff and took a bus to meet the rest of the people at the old SMU (now NUS law fac) compound. And so I finally met the forumers who I’ve seen posting actively in the forum. There were Tiwazz, Astrogirl, Petia, Eugene, Yakman, Dasher, Run3, Charlotte and Renoh. By the way, those are their forum nicks, and apparently most of us were calling one another by the nicks rather than our real names. (Haha, it certainly reminds me of my secondary school day, where I used to hang out with "chatters" who I knew through "Teleview". Then, we also called each other by our pen-names.)

So, after a bit of warming up, we were ready for the run! It was an approximately 15.5 km route, where we started from old SMU - Bukit Timah Rd - Ngee Ann Poly - Clementi Rd - Ulu Pandan Canal - Buona Vista MRT Station (water/toilet break here) - Holland Village - Holland Rd - Botanic Garden Minden Gate - Cluny Road - and back to old SMU. The whole run lasted about 1 hr 45 min, including a water/toilet break. 

Running together with a group certainly helps in improving my speed (although I was trailing behind the rest for most of the time). I bettered my 10km timing by half a minute (insignificant, but still better, right? ) and felt stronger throughout the run than when I ran alone.

Photos and map courtesy of Dasher

After completing the run, we went for a breakfast together at Mr Prata just opposite the old SMU stadium. 2 kosongs and 1 egg made me a happy man . Anyway, the new running friends that I made are really nice people, being warm and friendly to the new people who joined in the run (me and another two new ones). I definitely look forward to having more runs with the SGRunners forumers!

The Run

First part:

Total Distance: 10 km (minus 1 km+ which involved quite a lot of walking)
Total Time: 58 min 42 sec

Break of about 10 mins 

Second part: 

Total Distance: 5.31 km
Total Time: 34 min 04 sec