Once every year, Shape Singapore, the Singapore counterpart for the Shape magazine, organizes a running event especially for the Ladies. The amount of Ladies attending the event increases every year, and demand for the number tag of the run exceeds the number of tags being printed. The supply of the number of tags were never enough, even though the organizers increases the number of tags every year.
Why am I covering the Shape Run? Well, it just so happens that the Shape Run was the first major running event after I got my new Canon 550D. I had ran into the TimeX run by chance during my walk around the SengKang area, but that was mostly unintentional. I had wanted only to test out my camera that day, but did not expect to catch something as prominent at the TimeX run. You can read about the TimeX run over here.
Coming back to the Shape Run, I woke up a later than I had planned, and slowly made my way to the running assembly area, which is located at the Nicoll Highway, a highway made famous by the collapse of an underground construction site. Ironically, after 6 years of the collapse, people living in Singapore are benefitting from the railway station that was built beside the collapsed site. Within the collapsed site, lies the body of Mr Heng Yeow Peow, whose body was never found. You can read about the incident at the Wikipedia over here.
When I entered the train at the Seragoon train station about 2km from my house, I already sensed something was amissed. Most of the occupiants in the train were females. And most of them were wearing the lime-green coloured Nike Shape Run running T-shirt. I looked out of place immediately.
Yes. this is the Seragoon Interchange, the Circle Line platform. No no. This was not taken during the Shape run.
Trying to maintain a low profile, I wipped out my Readers’ Digest and began chewing words.
At the Mac Pherson Interchange, more ladies got onto the half filled train. The train was packed, but not packed to the brim. Everyone had about 3 inches of personal space. From where I was standing, I am the only person around with an external sex organ. It is an awkward situation.
Relief came to me only when the train reached Nicoll Highway station. From the moment I walked out of the train, I was flabbergasted. The whole train station was filled with ladies. As I was walking out of the station, a long queue of ladies were waiting for their turn to use the station’s wash room. Unfortunately for them, the station’s architect did not design the station to accommodate events such as the Shape Run, which only happen once every year.
The starting point of the Shape Run was very near to the train station, and as I walked around the venue, a handful of gentlemen started showing up.
Most of these gentlemen are accompanying someone they know. Many of the spouse of these gentlemen are running in the event.
The organizers for the event took the effort to rent a row of portable washrooms for the ladies to use. Unfortunately, it is still not enough. I hoped that no ladies ran with a full bladder that day.
After the participants were flagged off, I started walking around the venue to take a breather. From the venue, the skyscrapers of the city can be seen without obstruction.
The construction platform in the ?????? river beside the Nicoll Highway reminded me that the ****** river will not be that clean and pleasant, if not for the constant effort to maintain the cleanness of the river.
The Singapore Indoor Stadium was visible over the distance as well.
The Golden Mile Tower is an unique structure on its own.
After a while, the participants started pouring in. If you are interested in the final timing of ladies, you can visit here (link to Shape website_) to take a look.
Every ladies in the run amazed me. Looking at how each of them put in their effort to finish the race made me feel ashamed with the kind of excuses I came up with to skip my gym sessions.
Regardless of their age…….
Regardless where they came from…….
Or whether they are running alone, or in a team, they gave their best that day. It did not matter to most whether their names were published on the papers or not. What matters to them is that, they did what most people dreaded the most, that is, to finish a race they had started.
And to that, these ladies had earned my respect.