Finally!

After years of saying 'I want to run the Army Half Marathon but I'm too lazy to move my butt', I finally did it with Lynn today, without stopping! Having never ran beyond 11 or 12 km before, I was fully expecting everything beyond the 10km mark to be a complete torture - legs aching, knees breaking, me thinking 'whyintheworlddoIputmyselfthroughthingslikethis' - but no, it was such an enjoyable morning. In fact, it felt a lot better than all the 10kms I've ever done-

(1) The 21km starts at 5:30am, so the weather was nice and cooling throughout. I was quite tempted to take off my shirt a number of times, but that's because the crowd of NS smelly wellys made the air really stuffy. Way better than all those scorching hot 10km runs which made me resort to pouring water/gatorade over my head.

(2) The route was beautiful...from the Padang, past the Esplanade, up the Sheares Bridge, then to East Coast, then Kallang River...which was when it was dawn and the reflection of the surrounding buildings in the river water was really quite a sight to behold...then Orchard Road, which made me declare to Lynn, 'Yay we're running through my favourite shopping place!'... was hoping we'd run pass ZARA at Wheelock Place (haha), but nope. And it felt really nice to have people cheering us along the way, pumping water mists at various points...

(3) I think we were really running at a very comfortable and steady pace... must have been really slow, considering there wasn't a single moment of breathlessness from start to end...we could talk, we could sing, we could speed up over the last 3km and sprint towards the finishing line. And I can't believe I can still walk. Fine, we took 2 hours and 40 minutes...but I don't care because our only aim was to finish it without stopping. On another note, I found out that army boys get 2 days off work and a medal if they finish under 2 hours 45 minutes... If Lynn and I could do it so easily, it must be a piece of cake to them, completely slack!!!

(4) I had the company of Lynn! Finishing it together with her was what really made the whole thing so memorable. I think I would have been bored out of my mind from moving my legs non-stop for 2 hours plus if I was running alone... and I must say that she must be veryveryvery fit by nature; I really can't believe that she hasn't ran in a month and yet she managed to go all the way without stopping! Thanks babe for sharing the experience with me / all the encouragement... we did it! =)

And of course, there was Darren, who finished waaayyyyy earlier than us, but walked back to cheer us on near the finishing line.

My shopping prowess never fail me wherever I go. After running, I rewarded myself by buying a new Pink Reebok Drifit shirt at one of the booths...but it's cheap and pretty, really should have bought 2. Think Darren was really amazed that Lynn and I had the energy to spend so much time looking through all the Reebok stuff.

Post-running brunch at Cafe Cartel was MmmmMMMMmmm. Except that they lost our orders and left us starving for a long time. And I discovered that Darren is as weird as me when it comes to food... he doesn't eat oranges/muffins! Who on earth doesn't eat oranges/muffins???!!! But he thinks I'm weirder and need to see a psychologist over the long list of food I refuse to eat... I don't psychologically not want to eat chocolates, they really give me sore throats!

I feel so happy today man. So inspired to run the half marathon again next year... and really aim to run faster this time.

Running aside, Amanda, Christine and I went to watch The Samuel Beckett Project yesterday. I wasn't really expecting myself to enjoy it because Beckett's infamous for writing strange, minimalist, existentialist stuff that no one understands... true enough, I didn't understand most of it. The 1st play had only one woman talking very very fast... she almost didn't have to act since it was so dark that no one could see her. The second one was an old woman walking up and down this space on the stage which was probably about 5 metres long and 1 metre wide. The third one had three people in a pot, speaking very very fast again. The fourth was really ultimately weird, with this old woman doing nothing but rocking on a rocking chair... and it had a grand total of about 5 lines being repeated over and over again... and may I emphasize, over and over and over again. Think Beckett was really trying to test the patience of the audience... and I really let myself close my eyes since it made no difference.

But that was fine. What made the whole experience so horrible was this group of immature, rowdy, SINGAPOREAN secondary school kids on some outing. My goodness, they were laughing and chattering so much that the play couldn't start on time. Everytime things began to quieten, someone would say something inane and the rest of the lot would burst out laughing. And they kept laughing and making fun of the plays throughout the show. During the 2nd play, there were these two girls behind us whispering (loudly) non-stop... couldn't concentrate on what was happening on stage at all. On top of that, those little piece of shits were KICKING the back of the chairs, which was really so damn annoying. I really wanted to write a note saying, 'Excuse me, this is a free society, so if you're unhappy, you're free to leave, but please do not annoy those who're actually trying to watch the show. And, if you can't be bothered to show some respect to the performers on stage, show some respect to YOURSELVES at the very least by not behaving in such a disgraceful manner.' Unfortunately, I couldn't find a pen. It was really quite a disgusting episode, totally ruined my afternoon. ARGH.