More! More! Singapore!

As a member of the Hawaii Ten Miler Team, I was selected to represent the US in the 17th Singapore Army Half Marathon held on 24 August in Singapore City. It was an amazing opportunity to check out a fabulous place, so naturally I was excited. However, I had to leave the little Monkey behind, and I was definitely not excited about that. But, as you can see from the two blog posts, her Auntie Didin (we all know her as Kristen) did an AWESOME job caring for H and I hardly think she missed me at all! I certainly missed her, though, and I looked at the blog every time I was anywhere near the internet. I definitely will be updating more often!

The trip was so much fun! I hope I can go back with Chris and Hazel sometime. It was a beautiful, new, and well-planned country, and the people were so nice. Our hosts, Quek and Raj, were awesome. They came to get us at the airport at 2am, transported us everywhere, arranged for water points during our training runs, took us to a ton of fabulous restaurants, and even shopped with me! They even knew the answer to every obscure question we had. I learned so much!

We were one of nine Foreign Armies represented at the race; others included New Zealand, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand. This was the first year the US Army has competed in the Singapore Army Half Marathon and I made history as the first female to represent a Foreign Army at the event. It was totally creepy, though because some of the other teams took like a million pictures with me! I was so sick of smiling! I felt like a celebrity!

I lined up with some 75,000 participants that spanned the entire Esplanade Bridge for the first run across the newly completed Marina Barrage. I was right up front and with all of those people at my back I was totally freaked out about being stampeded like Mufasa! The Half Marathon began at the picturesque Marina Bay, and wound past famous landmarks, such as the Singapore Flyer, the Marina Bay Gardens, and over the Marina Barrage before ending at Padang Park. The field was very competitive and despite the Kenyan runners and choking humidity, I took 5th place overall with a time of 1:32.

The start of the race. Yeah, that's 75,000 people breathing down my neck! How's that for motivation?

The finish!

The three US runners!

The funkiest smell ever!

They promised it tasted better than it smelled--it did not!

Raj, our awesome host, and this frightening sign that was all over!

Shopping for presents at the market.

The Indian temple.

Everything was sooo tall!

The Singapore flyer.

The East Coast Park. Part of the race went by here.

At the beach.

Me on the flyer

Iced kachang-- this was a dessert! It was delicious!

Quek, our other great host at this crazy bar The Clinic.