OSB14 Week #9: Showers Of Blessing

We woke up to thundery showers and howls of the wind this early Saturday morning.  Our Ops Sunbird wet weather contingency plan obliged all to turn up for training, and eventually a nice group did show up at Carpark C4 Shelter.

The live weather updates were showing the movement of large rain clouds in the southern sector of the island.  While waiting for the rain to abate, we handed out the training tees to qualifying trainees who have with consistent attendance at training.

The rain trickled to a stop by 7:20am.  We flagged off as a group towards Fort Road facing cool winds and nice weather.  The plan was to do the first half of the distance at Marathon Pace (MP) and the second half of run at Optimal Pace (OP).  Many of the ladies who were signed up for the Great Eastern Women Run the next day did a shorter 18-21km as warm up.

The first 10km was great as all groups were seen enjoying the cool after-rain weather, finding the paces comfortable but yet maintaining a conservative stance in not speeding up.  As we approached Changi Coastal Road, the sun was peering through the thick clouds, emitting weak streaks of sunlight that was to get stronger as the morning wore on.

The smaller trainee pool allowed the pacers and trainers to give closer attention and also dispense some race day preparation tips.  The HM Sunbirds had a field day in the nice weather, while the FM Sunbirds managed a strong pace for at least 25km.

On the return out from Changi Coastal Road, the sun's rays beat down the backs of the runners.  Coupled with the tiredness of the legs, there were drops in pace across the groups by about 15s-30s/km.  Still, the Sunbirds persisted and when some got their second wind, they were able to maintain MP all the way back to C4.

Most of the trainees were glad they made their way down to ECP in spite of the heavy showers, and were rewarded with satisfying workouts and pushing their thresholds.  With the lessons learnt from the training LSD, some fine-tuning was in order to tweak the readiness and plan for a desirable set of results on Dec 7.

The majority completed Weekend 9's run plan to satisfaction, meeting most of the training objectives.  We look ahead to the longest LSD in Week #10 where we will put Optimal Pace into practice and going the longest 22km and 35km distances of the entire Sunbird program.

The Sunbirds Braved The Storm!

Facebook photos from FatBird Chin