Booked a room at The Residence at Singapore Recreation Club. The Esplanade Jr Suite was a decent room. It was cheapest accommodation around online and it was just overlooking the Padang.
Set my Hp alarm for 3am. Woke up at 2:20am because the next door neighbour was playing loud music and baby crying. At least I got almost 5hrs sleep. My friend slow_runner didn't manage to sleep almost the whole night. The beauty was that only 5am we left the room.
The funny thing is we reached 100m from the START and the announcer was saying, "You can start your watches now", "Wave your hands in the air because you're on camera". I told my friend that it's only 5:10am, 5 mins to go. It's only on reaching 50m from the START we realised they had flagged off - early.
I liked the slightly different route this year. Weave around from Collyer Quay to Robinson Road before going to Raffles Ave and then to Temasek Ave and running past Marina Bay Sands. This year I went at a slower pace compared to my 1st AHM last year. Last year, I remembered I did my 6km in a record 36mins. This time, I did my 6km in about 47mins. Much nearer to my 8mins per km pace. I also walked more in the beginning and took water from the 1st water point. It was very humid with hardly any breeze so early in the morning (diff from 2009 AHM which was not so humid).
My pacing for first 10km was around 7.5mins/km to 8mins/km. It was fine. I walked and jogged. I got through ECP and onto Fort Road w/o the double cramps of last year but walked more. I was struck by right knee cap pain so tried to walk more. By then, I was at 14km and 2/3 of 21.1km done.
My knees cramped at 18km in the F1 pit area. It was painful. Slight stretching did not help and I decided to walk slowly. 18km cramp much better than last year's 11km cramps. Walk slow, slow, dragging feet a bit.
Eventually finished with a last 50m jog to the finish arch. The gun time was 2hrs 56mins. My Polar recorded 2:52:16 (8mins 10secs per km avg pace). Very happy since I bettered my 2009 AHM of 3:10 when I was hoping for 2:59. Race experience was better since last year I was walking with cramped legs from 11km mark at Fort Road.
[13/09/2010 Update: Official time is 2:52:17]. Very happy.
Collected my Finisher medal with the 2 Nature Valley bars. Walked back to the Singapore Recreation Club. Took some photos while I waited for slow_runner to finish his shower. It was hot as the picture show below when the bulk of 10km runners finished.
Pasted from my sgRunners post:
My 2nd AHM. Am happy with their early start time, nice view going through Marina Bay Sands, lots of water points (the best in probably any event in Spore or overseas), the 100Plus is cold, I saw every km distance marker, the young army boys volunteering did a good job despite the pressure of the crowds at the water points (but I hope they will fill all cups 1/2 instead of full since some pple pour away the excess after one or two mouthful), bananas were provided (I saw 2 but someone said got 3 stations), Salonplas sprays still have when I went past the stations at my slow pace. 
The one improvement AHM organisers can consider is the last 2km merging. Raffles Ave was a tight sweaty mess for the slower 21km and the faster 10km participants. The dark blue bib army 21k runners and some younger 10k competitive running past could have been a little more considerate when overtaking. I was walking very painfully at the point because my knees and hamstrings were hurting real bad. No need to add to my physical pains by knocking me when cutting left and right all the way. At that point, if I had been knocked to the ground, I won't be able to stand up anymore and finish just <2km to the finish. That would have made me really
Other than that, great AHM for me. Instead of cramping at ~11km like last year, I only cramped at 18km. Race experience was thus better for me. Hopefully in time to come, I won't cramp and can finish 21km all the way. One of the messages just before the ECP exit: "Run if you can, Walk if you have to, Crawl if you must". Some humour and encouragement for slower ones like me
The one improvement AHM organisers can consider is the last 2km merging. Raffles Ave was a tight sweaty mess for the slower 21km and the faster 10km participants. The dark blue bib army 21k runners and some younger 10k competitive running past could have been a little more considerate when overtaking. I was walking very painfully at the point because my knees and hamstrings were hurting real bad. No need to add to my physical pains by knocking me when cutting left and right all the way. At that point, if I had been knocked to the ground, I won't be able to stand up anymore and finish just <2km to the finish. That would have made me really
Other than that, great AHM for me. Instead of cramping at ~11km like last year, I only cramped at 18km. Race experience was thus better for me. Hopefully in time to come, I won't cramp and can finish 21km all the way. One of the messages just before the ECP exit: "Run if you can, Walk if you have to, Crawl if you must". Some humour and encouragement for slower ones like me
Next event is POSB Kids Run coming Sunday. 4.5km sponsored by my company. I'll treat it as a recovery run. Hope the kids will enjoy their 1.2km run.
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