When we were in London in September, I was out for a little run/walk, and happened across a bunch of people running in a community event called ParkRun. I tagged along (as a bandit) for a bit, then asked one of the volunteers what was going on. He explained they held this 5k event in that park every Saturday morning. I figured it was unique to that park, or maybe to England.
When we were in Australia, I discovered they also have ParkRun, so I showed up in Busselton on a Saturday morning and ran. It was great running with a "pack" again. While there, someone told me similar events are held in hundreds of places around the world every Saturday morning, including Singapore. So, I ran here this past Saturday and made more new friends. We all went to Starbucks afterwards, and I really enjoyed getting to know some of the locals.
Today, they held a special Chinese New Year race, so I got to run again. The photo above was taken after the race this morning. The cute little doggy belongs to a Korean couple who live here. (He didn't run, but was pushed in a baby stroller.) The others are part of a larger gang who went to Starbucks afterwards. The diversity in this photo is a good reflection of both ParkRun and Singapore. Young and old. Moms and kids. Husbands and wives. Locals and tourists. Racehorses and clydesdales. In some ways, I wish we were moving here so I could run with this gang every week. (There's no ParkRun group in Seoul - yet.)
While I've found it challenging to run in the humidity here (it was 'only about 27C' at 7:30 this morning), I was still able to set a new "I'm over 50 now" personal best of 25:23 today. Not exactly greased lightning, but also not too bad for someone who couldn't run 2k non-stop in September.