Monday, December 08, 2008
So the Standard Charted Singapore Marathon was on the 7th of December. And I unwittingly signed up as a volunteer for the event. Ok not unwittingly. It was loads of fun.
So basically the first thing we had to do was report at 2am. Even though we were situated at Lau Pa Sat, which is basically 500m from the start point. But we weren't complaining. So we went there at 2, got dispatched at 3 and arrived at our checkpoints at 3.05.
Well there were 2 and a half hours before the race. So we fully utilized the opportunity of the road closure to take pictures on the road. Like sleeping on the road and all. We even made a trip to a nearby bank to, um, do nothing.
So then the race started. And the first group of people that ran by were the the elite athletes. 90% of them were african. So it's a group of about 18 africans and 2 ang mohs running by at about 15km/h. And that was warmup.
Then the normal runners came. And that was when the problem started. It seems like running 500m makes alot of people feel the need to use the toilet. So people started running off the road to pee. I was with ben tay and we saw them running to the bushes to pee. And it was quite disturbing.
It later turned out that there were alot of people going to the lau pa sat toilets. which would almost definitely cause the toilets to clog up. So we were then asked to redirect people to the nearby toilet. Which was about 1km away. I guess near is relative then.
First we started to tell people to run straight down and keep on the left. But that didn't work because some people would walk by and say that they were really urgent. And there wasn't much we could do about that anyway. Then later we decided to tell the people to run 400m down. Seems like that made them run faster. Which got them away from us.
hmm most of the people that wanted to use the toilet were men. which isn't very surprising, really. But there were only a handful of women that asked to use the toilet. Compared to about 100+ men. Maybe they asked their partners to ask for the whereabouts of the toilet haha.
Then halfway in the race we were also asked to get motorcycles off the road. Bicycles too. And it was quite cool. We'd go up to a motorcycle and say "turn off your engine now. I'm calling the police". And that causes all of them to freak out and listen to us XD.
By 9.30 the roads were clear, because everyone had already run past our station. So we decided to fully take advantage of the clear streets to hold a picnic on the road in the middle of Shenton Way. Unfortunately I haven't got any pictures now. I shall download them soon :/ But basically we did alot of things that you wouldn't get the chance to do if there were cars on Shenton Way.
So the entire thing ended at 12pm. And we went home burnt with $20 and a nice shirt. Decent way to spend a sunday.
And that night I ran into a glass wall. At Colin from church's house. That must have hurt the glass window (: But that night I also learnt how to play pool properly. even though sometimes i chip balls unknowingly. But it was fun. And I discovered a new sinfullllllly good food: millionaire shortbread! It's called that because it makes you feel like a millionaire. Or at least make you feel like going on a crash diet forever. Good thing I don't know how to make it haha.
posted @9:50 AM