First time attempting this. The race that was traditionally held on the last Sunday of the year. I was a little bit worried as i DNF for The North Face. Not sure how i will fare. But you will never know if you don't try.
The rules are simple, run as many laps (approx 10.5km) as possible in MacRitchie within the 12 hours (from 7am to 7pm). Completed the minimum of 5 laps and you get a finisher singlet and finisher certificate.
Went to bed around 1245 hrs. Woke up at 0515 hrs. Luckily Simon from Punggol runners kindly offer to drive me to MacRitchie, else i would either have to take cab or bus.
The night before, i did a few preparation and pack the below.
1) 7-8 power gels
2) 1/2 bar of milo bar(the other half was consumed during SCMS), 1 bar of boost (cut into 3 pieces for easy eating)
3) short
4) towel
5) sunglasses
6) deep heat rub
7) toilet paper
8) money, ezlink card
9) slippers
10) fuel belt with 2 bottles.
Meet Simon at Sengkang CC at around 0630 hrs. Reach MacRitchie at around 0655 hrs. Punggol runners support table have been set up. There is really a lot of food laid on the able. About 8 of the punggol runners are running the MR Ultra also.
Left my bag with them. Put on my fuel belt and turn on my garmin for it to acquire the satellites. The race started promptly at 0700 hrs, before my garmin managed to acquire the satellites. After a short while i started off when my garmin managed to acquire the satellites.
My plan is simple, same as North Face. Walk up the slope and try to jog down the slope. Do it as long as i can "tahan".
There are only 2 water points for each lap. 1 near the start point, the other is around the 4km mark, but since you need to loop back, you will re-visit the water point at the 6km mark also. Drinks provided is Pocari Sweat.
Did not bring any plain water during the first lap. So after completing the first lap, i proceeded to take a power gel.
For the subsequent lap, i topped up plain water from the tap and bring a power gel along to be consume at the u turn point (Petaling hut). I rested for about 10-15 minutes after every lap. During the break, i applied deep heat on both my legs, i even applied them on both my hips as i experience pain at both side. I also consumed the above chocolate bar, visited the toilet to freshen myself. The food at the support table is very tempting including the "tao huay". In the end, i forgo everything as i'm afraid of getting stomach upset.
The surprising thing is that i generally managed to stick to above strategy for the first 4 laps. Of course, the timing for every laps increase as fatigue set in. But i found myself still able to jog down the slope. During North Face, i was literally walking from 21km to 32km. There was hardly any jogging done during that stretch. Even at the fourth lap, i was still able to jog, i felt even stronger than during SCMS. Along the way, met many punggol runnners and other runners and we gave each other encouragement.
After the fourth lap, the distance clocked is a full marathon. Anything beyond that is unknown territory. At the start of the fifth lap, it started to drizzle. After 2km, the rain became heavy and there were many puddle of water along the trail. Spent a lot of time trying to "siam" the puddles. In the end, i just did not bother with it as i was going to retire my wave precision 9 anyway.
There was much more walking during lap 5, but i still managed to do some jogging. At around the last water point (4km more to go) the sky cleared and the rain stopped. Took some pictures along the way and when i came out of the trail, there was less than 1km left to go. I was a really a good feeling knowing that the end point is near. Proceeded to jog back to the finished point.
5 laps is the minimum and enough for me. Report to the time keeper who will give a slip of paper recording your laps and timing. With this slip of paper, you can collect your finisher singlet and certificate.
Instead of collecting the singlet and cert, the first thing i did is to collect my lunch from the organiser. The organiser provides lunch (old chang kee nasi lemak or mee) for runners, but i decide to eat after i finished the race instead of in between laps. Took my nasi lemak and drank some coke from the support table.
Rested a bit and went to wash up and change into the finisher singlet. Left MacRitchie after my wife came and pick me up.
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