As soon as I knew that the registration for early-bird has opened, I didn’t think twice. I signed up immediately with new and improved goals of finishing with better timing without after-race pain. 

So many things were happening consecutively, trips and all those. These made me unable to consistently train. Every time I’m in Singapore, I’d try to run approximately 15-16km 2 to 3x a week while other days were allotted for my other love, pole.

In afternoon of the race day, I attended the Sg50 mass at the Stadium. Hence, I only managed to sleep for two hours after the mass. And in running Sundown, I think, my main concern was my inability to complete it due to extreme sleepiness.

Initially, my plan was just to cut down 15minutes from my previous nett time of 6hrs, but during the race pack collection, there were only pacers for every difference of 30mins. I didn’t want to choose 6hours because I was sure, I would finish worse than that. So by then, I decided to go with the 5hrs 30mins pacers

Race started at 1am, a little later for those following later pacers. I followed them and for the first time, I was able to experience long distance running with them, with pace and breaks strictly timed and all. I passed ahead of them a little bit because I got tempted to follow that guy singing with his ukulele while running. Then again, I passed ahead of him and it was so lonely to run alone at this wee hours. I was so sleepy. 

I stayed with them for that crucial 28-38kms when usually I’d just stop working hard and just comfortably walk. With them, I decided to push a little harder and don’t give up and lose them. At 38km, my pace remained, while They slowed down a bit I guess, so I surpassed them a little. Because of the pacers, I got motivated to push harder and stay awake. I finished with timing almost 45minutes better than my last marathon, without significant pain in any parts of my body. My goals were achieved…thank you pacers. I wouldn’t be able to do it without your disturbing chicken (bell and whistling) sound…