This auntie can run

This post is 2 days late but it's taken me that long to get my butt off the sofa since I've completed the Standard Chartered 10km run on 3 Dec.

10km may be a walk in the park for seasoned runners. But for me, it is the grandmama of marathon. I have never ever completed any course more than 3.2km (and this was at my school's Cross Country event this year). During my annual Physical Fitness Tests in school many years ago, I remembered struggling excruciatingly through my 2.4km run, coming in looking ashen and in a collapsible mess, and had to be escorted to the sick bay later to recover from the trauma. Needless to say, I had never passed the 2.4km event. I was just relieved I didn't have to be sent off in an ambulance after the torture.

So when my brother asked me if I would like to join him for the 10km run this year, it took a while before a lily-livered me mumbled a reluctant yes. The only reason I insanely thought I could survive this ordeal was my sis-in-law (bless her heart!). She told me she did it last year, while 2 months pregnant. Instantly, the Ah-Beng instinct in me was roused. You know, when an Ah Beng gets challenged like that, he cannot take it lying down right? Never mind that my sis-in-law is years younger and hence less rickety than me, I mean, if a pregnant woman can run 10km, surely an unemcumbered tennis-playing auntie like me can do it too?

So my day of reckoning came on 3 Dec. I was awed by the electrically-charged atmosphere and the festivity of the occasion. The fact that I wasn't the only cellulite-laden, wobbly thighed middle-ager there was a huge comfort to me. The weather was superb, the mood exuberant and when the start-off signal sounded, it was me, my Zen V, and thousands of sneakers that pounded the streets of the CBD and beyond.

And then, more than 1.5 hrs later, as if I was hallucinating, I heard the cheers of the supporters. The end was near. My legs were moving as if they had a mind of their own. The agony in the muscles was numbingly present, yet I was oblivious to it, because the delirium of finally accomplishing what I thought was impossible was finally threatening to wash over me.

I looked up at the time board at the Finishing Point. 1 hr 40 min. I forgot to smile for the cameras. But it didn't matter. I had done it, ran the race of my life and survived.