Trail Running, the Endurance style.. (where TNF100 becomes Trek NF100)

Alritey!! Finished "The North Face 100" with BK yesterday.. phew.. was worried that I wouldn't be able to pull through.. for those who don't know anything about, here's an earlier post about the race pack collection about 2 weeks ago - http://lalaneedsalife.blogspot.com/2009/10/next-up-tnf100.html

The race for the 100km Duo started at 7am, with registration and hydration pack weighing at the starting point. And as usual, I saw Mohan there!! hehe... finally, with my camera, I managed to take a good pic with him after him taking so many pics of me.. I salute him, he just got back from Beijing marathon the weekend before.

Weighing the hydration pack


MOHAN, my man!!!

Yee Hua was racing too

Nothing much to shout about for this race start.. just.. countdown.. 3..2..1... go!! Tt's all.. haha... think I've been through too many of this to get overtly excited about race starts. OK!! Time to go..

The start was ok, not too bad, with the usual slopes and light trails easy enough to run through. Finally, we reached Bukit Timah, and here is where all the quad and hams torture starts. Ugh.. starting from the base, we tracked the road trek up, just missing the steps up to the summit where we turned off and reentered the trails after a bit. Then it was rockky downhill all the way till we hit ZhengHua.

At the first run off to the second part of the trails..

Met some cute MTB'ers on the way.. wanted to hitch a ride...

From ZhengHua to Mandai, the trek was ok, not too bad... and we did a quick run here. We didn't go through Gangsa Trek on the way to Hill 265, so was spared of the trails there for now.

Finally, at Mandai Rd, and crossed a traffic light to .... Lorong Asrama up to Hill 265. There was a water point and chk point here.. and it is this 9km round this hill that totally shattered a lot of runners (inc me).. The upslopes were for some literal upslopes and well.. turn after turns, it only felt like we were fighting a never ending battle... tahan tahan.. I thought the end was near when we started moving downslopes, but oh no.... one left turn... *shingzzz*... a huge red laterite wall appeared in front of me.. and the arrow says.. UP!! bloody f***!!! ok.. nvm.. start trekking again..

Yes... Hill 265 was this bad..

Roadkill at Hill 265

Continued on, and finally, saw the turnoff point where lorong asrama started, and the water point again... hooray!!! Finished this torturous part.. !!! OK, fill up with 100plus, back to Mandai and another 20km more to go...

Now we go through Gangsa trek towards Bukit Timah, and yes, BK's fave part.. the undulating, shadeless slopes.. the killer slopes after all the trail running. Just want to say that here.. I should have just rolled down the hill..

Turned out at Bukit Timah, water point, and turned in to the trails to MacRitchie again to hit the 40km mark.. I was happy, my spirit brightened up again, and with newly found energy, run/trekked all the way back to MacRitchie.. (BK helped me with my bag the last 5km.. tq tq tq.. )

So happy at the 40k mark, BK did the VISA dance!!

YES YES YES!!! Saw the end is nigh.. and started to plan another dramatic ending.. the CRAWL.. part 2.. hahahah.. this time.. caught it nice on video :) :)



OK.. time 8+ hrs, happy, got the medals, went to get Subway sandwiches and more food and drinks. Sat on the grass, ate the food, talked a bit more.. and basked in the glory of finishing another race. ahh... now, just got another few thousands to go... haha.. jes kidding.. :)

Trudge on... and trail onz!!!