Race Review: Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2019

It is the end of the year again where local runners in Singapore take it as a finale in their running journey of the year. This also sets as a prelude to the festive season that is upcoming to celebrate the end of the year and to welcome the following new year!

This year Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon (SCSM) 2019 starts at 6pm and has officially become an evening race instead of the usual morning race which starts as early as 4:30am. It is a tough call for Ironman Asia, the organiser of the event, who wants the SCSM to be a World Marathon Major (WMM). There are many criteria to fit into this and it will take a few years, if successful, to be accredited.

Training

The training for this race is combined together with the Yokohama Marathon 2019 (link: https://autumnrunner.wordpress.com/2019/11/24/race-review-yokohama-marathon-2019/). The training is focused more on Yokohama Marathon and with SCSM taking as a more relaxed run. However, as the atmosphere and confidence sets in, the target change over time and this is something not desirable as both races are too close. You will know what happened as you read more.

Race pack collection

I went after lunch on Wednesday to collect my race pack and luckily there were no queue at all. It could partly be the generous number of booths in the expo which ensure that runners’ experience is well taken care of.

No queue in the “snaky” route to collection. A great different from Yokohama Marathon, if you have seen my previous post

Runners were asked to present their identity and the race bib together with the baggage deposit bag is collected. Runners were handed the goodie bag at the 2nd stage. This poses more efficiency as the volunteers at the 2nd stage were clear that they only need to give the goodie bag and size of singlet.

1st stage of collection

2nd stage: Male and female booths were separated due to the varying singlet type and sizes

After the collection, as I walked into the race precinct, I was muffled by the number of SCSM merchandise which were indeed of pretty good quality and design. Even me, who has ran with them over 10 years ago, would be attracted and took some time to convince myself not to buy them since I have so many of the tees and singlets at home.

Large area for runners to shop

There were further 4-5 segregation zones for runners to purchase more items which is useful for their running journey.

Partner zone

One of the 4 other zones

Booths on both sides

There were also booths which introduce runners to the other marathons around the world. Some of the examples are GoldCoast Marathon, some Vietnam race, Japan races and even North Korea race.

The walk in the expo, even if we did not buy anything will take us a good 10-15minutes of so to walk through every booth.

Race pack

The race pack consists of heat pack, packet of peanut, coffee powder, singlet and the rest of the items can be seen here. Most are not useful and the race pack seemed to have drop it’s standard again.

Day Before Race Day

The build up from my last Marathon 3 weeks ago till this marathon was nothing but a super relaxing tapering period. As I was spending 1 week in Japan, and running becomes secondary at that point in time. After I am back to Singapore, it is too late to ramp up any training to gain any fitness hence, the taper went further downhill instead.

As this was an evening race, the breakfast and lunch needs contain a little more carbohydrate than usual so that there will be adequate glycogen to burn during the run. As the race starts at 6pm, we will be literally “missing” our dinner so it is important to consider the meal plan before the race.

Race Day

At about 330pm, I was preparing to go to the race village and there was a scare when some areas in Singapore was raining. Well, it would not be a bad idea though as the sun was scotching hot in them morning and late afternoon which runners were sure that there will be a lot of heat related issues in the race if this persists.

Dark clouds started appearing around 4pm onwards till the start of the race, but the rain did not pour. I reached the race precinct at around 4:30pm and it was a little too early so I walked around to absorb the atmosphere. There were already many runners walking towards the start point with me. There were about 15,000 runners in the full marathon category and separated in 7 pens from A to G.

signages and marshallers guiding the human traffic

There were also adequate signages to guide runners to the baggage, toilets, race village, start point and this will be useful for the foreigners.

There was security checks as well right at the front before runners go into the race precinct to deposit their bags. It was a safe feeling to ensure that there will not be unforeseen events and the security poses a very important role.

Safety of runners is of utmost importance

There was a 2nd layer of checks where security checks the baggage of all runners. This is partly the reason why our baggage bags are transparent. Those without baggages can proceed to the next lane for express check-in.

Express lane or bag lane?

The race site was pretty empty when i reached at around 4:30pm and it got real crowded at around 5:15pm.

The baggage area was dictated with the bog letters at the building

There were 3 tentages of hydration as organiser knew that the hydration at the start of the race is of utmost importance and it should not be taken lightly. As i was sitting near one of the hydration tent and I can see that many runners were appreciative of this move.

There were 3 tentages of such

There were runners from many countries and there are just too many to name it here. Hence I think it is really turning to an international event. I am proud of this being a local here.

There were also plenty of toilets and I estimated the total numbers of toilets from all 3 areas to be in a range close to 70-80. I did not see any queue above 5 person at it’s peak and I think there was no complain about this.

The pen opens at 5pm and I walked into the pen at about 5:30pm while soaking into the atmosphere at the race village. The place starts to get warmed up as I walked into the pen where loads of people were waiting patiently. The dark clouds can be seen in my previous photos and it helped to cool down the area a little.

I did not bring my handphone in case it rains.

The race started at 6:05pm and the horn blew right accurate to the second. The wheelchair category started at 6pm sharp. The temperature and humidity at the start was still bearable but there weren’t much wind which made the already hot and humid weather felt much higher with the immense number of runners together.

The race took us from F1 pit area towards West Coast highway, running back to the CBD, turning to East Coast park for a short while, before going back to our usual Marina bay area and finishing at the Floating platform.

\The 1st few kilometres was running towards west coast highway before running on it. After the u-turn at around 12-13km, we head back down under the viaduct. At that point in time, there were runners running to and fro along the road and I suddenly felt very warm and humid. I reached out to my watch and saw a super high HR which I would only notice during my intervals. At that moment, a decision has to be made, to either slow down and ditch the target timing or press on and see how it goes later. After thinking for about 5s, I decided to just ditch the race with the thought that “there will be another race” and a look at my watch showed 18km. I knew straight away that the next 24km will be torturous.

I saw one of the pacers went down and was lying by the road side with medical attending to him. It is not easy to keep pace especially if it’s sub 4 hours. And subsequently saw a few more runners went down at the medical tents as well. Hope everyone is well. Talking about this, if there were more heat sprays along the route will be better. I went to a few after 30km mark and two rejected me as their sprays ran out. That was quite disappointing.

I slowed down amidst the heat and humidity and managed to keep my heart rate to a more “correct zone”. By then,the only thought in my mind is to complete the race in one piece.

There were hydration points at about 2km-2.5km apart and each hydration was pretty long at about 75m or so. This gave runners the option to collect their cups from the front or back and not causing too much congestion together. There was always adequate hydration on the tables with lots to spare.

There were portable toilets along the route and almost always near to hydration stations. This ensure that runners do not need to find bushes or vegetation to relieve themselves which actually is prohibited in certain countries and risk being disqualified.

Some part of the route along the Marina Bay area was dark and being a night race, this should be taken care of as a safety feature. For locals who has been running adequate races, we roughly know these areas and would expect the terrain and route to come, as for foreigners, it will form a problem especially for the front runners who have no one in front to take reference from.

The run along east coast park and west coast highway is the most boring as there were not many spectators along the route. There were more spectators along most of the route as compared to the older versions but I do not think that shifting the race to an evening race bought much improvement in this manner.

The short run along the monotonous marina bay east where the barrage is right in front of us showed a long and uninviting route to the finish. I noticed that there were many who slowed down to a walk at the last 10km and being in some pain with my old injury, it is easy to follow these runners and enjoy the long walk-run to the end

There were 2 hydration stations where they have provided solid fuel such as bananas and energy gels for runners to intake. many volunteers at the hydration station were handing out the the cups of hydration and energy gels/bananas to runners instead of getting runners to snatch them from a table.

The “heart break” hill/bridge came around 38km mark and some of the runners’ strategies were to walk up the slope. At that point in time where the slope comes into the route, it is really difficult so it is really up to the runners if they prefer to walk or run.

The last 4km of the race took runners to the Nicoll highway and back to the floating platform. My mind then was really to complete the race and sit down/stretch my legs without moving them. The last few km was filled with spectators along the side and that does help a little to boost a bit of the morale up to keep running to the end point.

Looking at my watch and I realised that I have surpassed the official Full Marathon distance and the finishing line is still a turn away. The final distance is about 43km and this is consistent with the rest of my friends. It is almost 1km out and this is one of the fundamental parameter to be adhered to.

Post Race

Runners who ran past the finishing line would either stop at that point in time to relieve their legs from any movement, or to bend over a little to “stretch” their backs and most of us will continue to walk a little to ensure blood flows around the body even when the legs were so tired.

The 1st thing runners were given was the medal followed by a bottle of mineral water to quickly cool down and replenish the much needed fluid to their bodies. As we march on, we were handed isotonic drink and a wet and cold towel which was like the nicest item to place over the neck and head. It was then that I felt the weather was really quite punishing even though when it was running at night.

I could not remember clearly at which stage did we collect our finisher tee (imagine how tired I was at that point in time). Volunteers checked out the finisher tee that I signed up for and gave me the tee promptly. The next area gave me something that I really need, bananas and chips. I asked for 1 more and gobbled both up while walking towards the race village. The walk to collect all the goodies were pretty long and it took us from the floating platform all the way back to the F1 pit. It was good too to ensure runners do not stop abruptly after such a long race.

The race village looked very vibrant and filled with people and booths for runner and spectators to enjoy. I saw the tiger balm massage tentage, more hydration, toilets area but my heel was not listening to me at that point in time and I had to slowly make my way back after taking a short rest.

By the time I reached home, my heel was in pretty bad shape where I could not walk well but had to limp back. There is nothing I can complain since i was adamant in joining the race.

Front of medal

The front of the medal presented a huge lion with the race and distance words engraved at the front. There were some acrylic portion of the medal and when I took a closer look, there were “bubbles” in it which means air managed to get into it before they “hardened” it. The engraved words were not sharp and there were some scratches too.

Rear of medal

From the rear of medal, it seemed that there is another medal manufacturer in the market and hope there produce better medals in the future to come.

Front of finisher tee

Rear of finisher tee

The finisher tee material seemed different from the conventional Compressport brand that I came across and it’s softer and better. The prints at the rear of the tee looked very “adhoc” where the entire white background words is printed on the tee. The past finisher tees’ prints looked more coherently designed with the tee.

Ratings:

Race Expo: 4.5/5 (many booths which translates to no queue, many stalls for runners to visit and purchase the merchandise,

Race precinct: 4/5 (adequate hydration, adequate portable toilets, baggage has no queue, a little crowded at it’s peak before start of race and after race completion)

Medal/Singlet/Finisher tee: 3.5/5 (being a major race, expectation were bigger too, medal quality not there, finisher tee design outdated)

Post Race: 4/5 (given wet towel, bananas, water and 100plus, long walk to collect all goodies, crowded, lots of stalls/booths)

Race: 4/5 (evening race wasn’t as cooling as expected, hydration adequate, route wide enough, adequate toilets, energy gels and bananas given, race is 43km)

Overall rating: 4/5

The race has improved significantly since the worst times around 2012-2016 period. Hope this carries on. This 1st try of an evening SCSM race brought many new experiences for many runners, pacers and also commuters/drivers. Elites time to complete took longer, pacers who trained consistently were also bonked out, many elite runners DNF, many normal runners also seek medical attention at tentages along route, many runners were walking, drivers caught in massive jams complaining, etc etc…

Would this first time evening race for SCSM be in the pocket of SCSM history as the one and only evening race in 2019? And switching back to morning race in 2020 given all these? Only time will tell and I have some kind of sensing that we will see the race back to the morning in 2020.