Singapore Marathon: Pre Race

On December 5, Annie and I rushed to NAIA Terminal 3 amid the heavy Friday evening traffic to discover that we should’ve gone to Terminal 3 instead.  That incident, we laughed, was a sign of things to come for the entire Singapore trip.

We landed in Singapore a little past midnight on Saturday, Dec. 6. We were dead tired, but we were up and about that Saturday morning, along with pacemate, JunC, who volunteered to be our bodyguard, navigator, kargador, photographer, confidante, and friend, to:

1) Pick up our race packets (race bib, bag, champion chip, flyers and free samples) at the Expo Convention and Exhibition Center…

which took less than 10 minutes due to excellent set up and organization…

2) Shop around at the Sports & Fitness Expo at the exit of the registration area…

where Annie bought 2XU calf guards and a race belt, Jun got a cap, and…

poor TBR just browsed around and tested items…

– TBR feigning interest in Newtons. I’m just too afraid to try these on my flat feet –

3) Shop at pre-determined areas such as IKEA, Nike, Asics, Adidas, and uhm…that’s about it. (Sorry, no pics available as our photographer, JunC, had his hands tied carrying two comforters I purchased for the kiddos)

4) Eat-and-Run Carbo loading dinner at Kim’s sister’s house near our favorite Paragon Mall. (Thank you again Kim!)

We made the big mistake of tiring ourselves the day before the race. We were pooped—and we worried that it would affect our performance.

Fortunately for me, I dozed off by 9:30pm.  My roomie, Annie, hardly got any shuteye as she stressed over her marathon, but she ran sub-4. Poor JunC slept for only 3 hours and probably paid the price for it when he cramped during the race.  

Lesson learned: Next race abroad, arrive 2 or 3 days in advance.

Next post: Post Race