It was slated to be the
longest night training LSD in the NightHawk Program, and turned out to be the
most challenging as well. The initial
conditions were rather cooling as we ran alongside the green lung of OUTR, but
once out onto UTR, we had to contend with
a few traffic junctions and some heat generated from the road traffic. There was some relief when we hit the
connector road along Mandai Road Mandai Lake Road
The HM folks reached their
U-turn point at Yishun Ave
The FM group turned left onto
Mandai Road
The Kookaburra Program was
into its 3rd session, and with basebuilding in mind, the Kookaburra
trainees were all too happy to go along with the running guides doing 16km and
25km distances. Because the group is
smaller, they were able to keep together within their respective timings and
eventually completed 26km, not too bad for only the second time they were
running with FatBird.
The key lesson for the night
must surely be the sudden change of weather to one with humid conditions 1.5hrs
into the run. That made the return leg
of the runners much more challenging, and there were a few incidents of ‘loss
of power’ through fatigue and dehydration.
Although many brought along their fuel belts and hydration packs, they
were not prepared for those levels of humidity and warmth. The humidity got on to some of the runners
who had emptied their hydration ahead of plans, and there were really no water
points along that longish stretch of Mandai
Road
With a strong base built up
over the past few weeks, the trainees were able to eventually overcome the
challenges of the Wild Night, although many were drained by the heat and felt
quite exhausted at the end. It was a
good experience for all the Nighthawks to understand how their bodies perform
for night running, the humid conditions leading to rapid loss of fluids and
electrolytes, the low visibility causing the mind to tell the body it is tired
and wants to go to sleep, etc. If not
for the groups that they were running along with, many of them would have
stopped and walked all the way back.
Back at MacRitchie Amenities
Centre, there were more time spent this evening on debriefs and feedback on the
feelings of the challenges of running at night.
We have learnt much about night running and that it poses different
challenges from day running. The
NightHawks and Kookaburras can be proud of themselves that they went through
the Wild Night relatively unscathed although some had encountered difficulties
along the way. It is through toughing it
out at such runs that we can be conditioned better for race night - the mantra
of ‘Train Hard, Race Easy’ never rang so true with the NightHawks &
Kookaburras until this evening.
We are glad we got to
experience the tough conditions, which will serve to strengthen us as well as
not to take the marathon/half too lightly, esp. one that is run at night. We now enter the final stages of marathon
training with the culmination of the longest LSD next weekend, all 21km-35km of
running glory, this time in the morning
and going at Optimal Pace. Till then, we
will have a good rest while reflecting on the lessons we garnered from The Wild Night Run at
MR.
.jpg)
