Night Hawk #9 - Tapering Month Begins

Field Report filed by FatBird Anthony
Photos by FatBird Jancy


The skies were cloudy and the weather forecast was for morning showers. When we reached ECP at 6.50am, it started to pour...shucks! Met Peck Hui and the 3 of us waited for about 10min before the rain miraculously subsided....phew! Saw Joy Riders congregating in Carls Junior, and then proceeded to our meeting place at The Shed.

With the bulk of the runners having done their long runs on Thursday and Friday evenings, the turnout of 40 was not too bad. This being the start of the final third of NightHawk Program, as well as entering into Tapering Month. Because of the MR25 Progressive Run happening tomorrow, we deliberately carved out the 32km route to comprise of a 20km loop + another 12km smaller loop. All the runners were to U-turn at the traffic junction before crossing over to Changi Coastal Road.

There weren't too many runners at ECP this morning, although the top women runners like Vivian Tang, Swee Kheng, Lai Chee, Lesley, Sumiko were out there training their hearts out for the important event ahead. Spotted friends from MR25 who were there conducting the Law Society Run, and had a short, nice chat with RealRunner too. I ran the first 10km with tekko and hino, both active members of SgRunners, and we were sharing tips as well as information of some of the recent runs we have participated in.

The front group of Chun, Keonz, YN, Lai Chee, Lesley, Adrian and friends were striding along comfortably in the cool after-rain weather. Jancy and Beng were watching out for the 10km-15km runners, and they too were enjoying the nice morning weather. On the return, it was nice to be chatting with annie (from Philippines) who was just posted to Singapore. She did a mean sub-4hr marathon at SCSM08, following our 4:00hr Pace Group....hehe, talk about coincidence. She shared with DO and I about the Philippines running scene, the Mizuno, Nike, ASICS Run Clubs there, and also established runners like BaldRunner, BoldRunner :)

15km runners at the FatBird Watering Hole

By the 15km mark, most of the group were not far from one another. Keonz, YN and the front runners have made their way back for a second loop. There were many people whom we waved to....one of the nice things about running at ECP is always the running kakis and friends that we bump into as we cross paths and exchange greetings. We completed our 20km, and decided to save the legs for the next 20km on Sunday. Annie conducted a very nice bout of stretch-downs for us, and offered some good tips on core-strengthening exercises...thanks.

We stayed on for the next 1.5hours cheering on those runners coming back from their longer distances, as well as offering them words of encouragement as they run by the FatBird Watering Hole. By then, the weather had turned windy, and it did pose some challenge to the tired runners after their 25km. Still, all did very well to return comfortably....many looked like they could go on for another 5-8km at least.

Having a good stretch-down

The next NightHawk LSD will be the Blink Blink Run #2 on Friday night, where we will cover the 10km, 20km, 30km, 50km on parts of the actual Sundown Route. From there, we will be in tapering mode, and all are advised to watch their diets, take some vitamins, and reduce their mileage for more rest.