A Sakura Story: Singapore's Sundown Half Marathon

Singapore's Sundown Half Marathon

Unlike most marathons, the Sundown is special in one very different way - It’s held at night with the race beginning just before midnight.

The race took place on a Friday night May 31st. Of course the weather at 5pm on Friday was rather most uncooperative. There was a massive thunderstorm downpour which lasted for several hours. I kept thinking if the rain kept up it could be one of the worst races ever! I even did a quick check on the sundown marathon website to see if they were considering canceling if the rain continued but found nothing. Thankfully the rain finally stopped at around 8:30pm and by 10pm the skies were pretty clear.

Kingsley decided to take a quick nap after work before the race began and slept from 7pm-9:30pm but I was too nervous to sleep so watched TV and continued to obsessively check the weather outside every 5 minutes.

When we finally arrived at the F1 pits which was the start of the race, security was pretty tight - likely due to the recent Boston Marathon incident. But everything in Singapore seems to be incredibly well organized and the Sundown race was no exception. We had our bags checked in no time and so headed to the starting line with about 15 minutes to spare before the race began.

The nighttime running was fun - I really enjoyed the stillness and peacefulness of running in the dark. Neither Kingsley or I achieved any great times on our runs but we felt great and had fun which is what its all about.

We finally made it home and fell asleep at about 4:30am just as the sun was starting to wake up!