TMBT 2013 will take place in September and runners will compete over the Crocker Range mountains of Sabah which includes village trails, open gravel roads, and crossing over hanging bridges on the race course to finish on the South eastern side of Mount Kinabalu in the foothills overlooking South East Asia’s highest mountain at Mount Kinabalu. The race director had led on that there will be a river crossing point, and maybe two!

Here’s a sneak peek of the kind of terrain that will make up the race course of TMBT 2013:

I cannot wait for the adventure to begin!

I found this new challenge in the form of ultra trail running. Due to our small size and urban build-up, there aren’t many trails to run in except in and around the central catchment area of McRitchie, Upper and Lower Pierce reservoir. Save for Bukit Timah hill (163m), we don’t even have a mountain here to run and train in! Due to this constraint, I guess I will have to look to neighboring countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and even Hong Kong, where there are abundance of beautiful mountain trails to run in.

Putting these terrain limitations aside, trail running is definitely a refreshing change compared to road running. The sights, sounds and smells of nature are something you won’t get to enjoy on road running.

Let’s journey into the different zones and experience the wonders of our blue planet at S.E.A Aquarium.

This exhibit is a display of a shipwreck habitat showcasing a monumental shipwreck with a splintered hull that nature’s resilience has transformed into a thriving marine sanctuary.

Both children and adults were fascinated by these glow-in-the-dark sea creatures, they are in fact jelly fish.

The ocean dome offers visitors a panoramic 180 degrees vista of the open ocean habitat. The photo does not do justice to the panoramic view visitors were treated to.

And then came the highlight we have been looking forward to – the open ocean gallery. It offers the planet’s largest window to the ocean. One has to be there in person to experience the awesomeness of it all!

The open ocean is home to gentle giants of the seas, including the leopard shark, goliath groupers, Napoleon wrasses, and a squadron of giant manta rays wowing visitors with their effortless gliding in the oceanarium.

Showcasing the majestic predators of the ocean, visitors walked through a glass tunnel and was able to observe various shark species, including endangered species.

This concludes the photo-walk of my journey through the world’s great oceans. It was a great educational trip, both for the children and myself.

Here are some local races which I ran in 2012, which correspond to the popular event location depicted in the infographic:

Earth Day Run 350 at The Float

Sundown Marathon at Nicholl Highway

Adidas King of The Road at Gardens By The Bay

SAFRA Singapore Bay Run 2012 at The Esplanade Bridge

Passion Run 2012 at East Coast Park

Infographic: Running Scene in Singapore 2012 brought to you by RunSociety.

Arrival

Food and Fun at Phuket Fantasea

The Golden Kinnaree Buffet Restaurant is a perfect example of the park’s grand scale. It is a 4,000 seat theme restaurant offering a grand buffet of Thai and International cuisines. It was indeed a special experience to be dining in one of the world’s grandest restaurant!

After a sumptuous meal at the grand restaurant, it was time to hit the carnival village for some games and mini exploration of the park

The carnival village is an enchanting street of shops selling souvenirs, craft demonstrations, game stalls and entertainment center. Everything in this village is big, bright, ornate, and made to impress!

Park visitors can enjoy the spectacular view of the Palace Court whilst riding atop the elephants!

The Palace of the Elephants, a custom-designed 3000-seat theatre made to look like a majestic, centuries-old palace is even more impressive.

All too soon, it was time for the main show, “Fantasy of a Kingdom”. It is a unique theatrical spectacle blending Thai ancient culture with the wonder of cutting edge technology and special effect. Of course photography and video-recording devices are strictly prohibited inside the theatre. Hence, there was no more photo op once we enter the theatre.

Phuket FantaSea bills itself as “the ultimate cultural theme park”, and it’s tough to come up with a better description. Fantasy of a Kingdom, this show is perfectly mixed with High technology of lights, colors,and sound, the people, the animals and Thai culture, it’s great for all ages.

Touted as “Phuket’s wettest wildest waterpark”, the park has thrilling rides such as the Boomerango and Superbowl as well as a six-level wave pool and an aqua-play pool for the children.

Besides the two big thrill rides Boomerango and Superbowl, it has 3 other slides of a lower thrill level which are suited to younger children that meet its safety height limit of 122cm.

Kids have their own pool called ‘Aqua Play’ with plenty of small sliders, waterfalls and water games. Every once in a while, a monster water bucket located at the very top of the kids playground will empty its content in a gigantic splash.

If the exhilarating slides are not for you then there are other milder options around for your enjoyment. Snaking around the sprawling park is a 335 meters lazy river, hop onto the freely available single or double and meander your way

Upon entry, each adult gets a wristband with a key attached, you are able to open and lock your assigned locker unlimited number of times. The park operates on a cashless system, the number on the wristband act as your “wallet”, and you pay for your expenditure in the park upon checking out at the end of the day.

It is such a joy to travel with children and you knew they have enjoyed themselves thoroughly. The Splash Jungle waterpark offers wholesome fun for the whole family, whether you are after a relaxing day in the water or an adrenalin rush, Splash Jungle has it all!

We landed at Phuket International Airport on the sunny morning of 19th Dec and took a 50-min car ride to Patong. Thankfully, the famed Bangkok traffic jam was nowhere to be seen on the road of Phuket.

It’s not that I’m not a beach person, but I spent all of 15 mins on Patong beach before making a quick exit! It is not exactly white sandy beach, and everywhere we turned, we were hounded by touts out to make a quick buck touting their beach chairs, jet skis, banana boat rides and para-sailing. It was all par for the course for those traders veying for the tourist dollars, but a real turned-off for me.

The Hotel
We were glad to have booked our 3-night stay at the newly opened Novotel Vintage Park Resort hotel. It is a family-oriented hotel with a large swimming pool, a restaurant, a spa, a gym, a convenience store, and a small business centre.

When we are not out local shopping or doing some activities, we spent a lot of time in the pool having tons of fun! Having a good pool at the hotel is a sure-fire way to keep the children occupied and entertained when traveling with children, so that the adults can actually take a vacation, and not there to look after the children!

Two weeks later, I was back on home soil to try to lower the time, and the pressure this time was to make sure that my sub-4hr achievement in Penang was no fluke.

Fortunately, I duly delivered a lower time, crossing the line with a nett time of 3h 55m. Friends and readers who follow me on Twitter would have seen the live results as my split times were tweeted during the race itself.

The official results were also released a couple of days later, along with runpix analysis, and e-certificate available for download.

The end of the biggest race in Singapore thus concludes the running season for me, it also signifies the start of self-indulgence in the year-end festivites, catching up with much needed sleep and family time, before the grind of training starts all over again next year!

The early morning of 2nd December saw me assembled on Orchard road with nearly 15,000 runners for the start of StanChart Marathon Singapore 2012. This was the 4th time I’m running this marathon, and the third full marathon this year. Coming just 2 weeks after my maiden overseas marathon in Penang, the concern of insufficient recovery time was constantly at the back of my mind.

A stomach bug had me contemplating whether to pull out of the marathon, but I pushed on as I didn’t want to develop the habit of quitting at the first sign of discomfort. Overall, I didn’t feel great at the start as compared to previous years. I decided to soldier on and see how the race panned out.

The SCMS was awarded the Gold Label certification by the International Association of Athletic Federtions (IAAF) after SCMS 2011 edition, raising it to be among the levels of the Berlin, Lodon and New York City marathons. This year, the Singapore Sports Council had capped running slots and brought down participation from last year’s 65,000 to 53,000 across all categories. This was a conscious effort to address feedback and safety concern of overcrowding and to ensure a good running experience for participants.

The route inside the CDB which got so congested last year, was also tweaked and the pathway was a lot more spacious this time round. However, the point where 21km runners merged with full marathon runners remained the same, and we had to content with an unbreachable ‘human wall’ from the 37km mark onwards. This ‘human wall’ was further reinforced when the 10km runners all converged at the 40km mark, making overtaking near impossible, and the last 2km was ground to a slow jog to the finish.

In the end, I was just glad to have finished the race and not given up along the way. Finishing point at the Padang, the race site was so crowded. It was runners and more runners everywhere!

Special thanks had to go out to all the volunteers working tirelessly throughout the event, manning the hydration stations, safety points, and offering plenty of enthusiastic cheering and encouragement for us to push on. In hindsight, I was full of crazy to have ran and completed 42.195km even though I was not feeling 100% from the start!

Additionally, I created a little piece of personal history as I completed the race in under 4 hours! Friends and readers who follow me on Twitter would have seen the live results as my split times were tweeted during the race itself.

Please bear with me a little more as I savour this personal triumphant moment of hitting my time target of a sub-4 hours race. It has inspired me to improve my timing in future races.