It was a dark and stormy morning.

Well, it was dark before this picture was taken.

The handphone by the bedside announced the arrival of 5:30 am with a series of irritating beeps. The dreary sleeper roused herself from a short, disturbed sleep.

Mettle and grit put to the test.

Will she shake off the inertia of dawn to drag her sluggish self through the rituals of waking? Brave the pouring rain to present herself upon the scene of her punishment?

Yup.

Through rain and snow, hail and sleet, she forged ahead.

Not forgetting to camwhore while she did.

Taking full advantage of the flattering red sheen cast off from reflected vehicle brake lights.

And then, she was there. Together with fellow kooks.

The storm had lightened into a steady drizzle but the rain didn’t look to be stopping anytime soon. The mood was uncertain, despite false bravado showing on certain faces.

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Ok, I’m tired of writing in third-person narrative so I’m reverting to my usual first-person.

Yesterday was Run For Hope 2007.

When we arrived at Sentosa at 7 am, it was still raining lightly. We had to walk in the rain for 15 minutes to get to the starting point of the run.

But before that, I had to relinquish my stuff, including my camera, to the Goonfather (caretaker of barang), who refused to walk with us, preferring to sit in the shade at Coffee Bean with his PSP to wait out the race.

So, I couldn’t take any photos of the actual event, starting from our wet trudge to the starting point to wait for the race to start, and culminating in our weary stumble through the finish line.

By the time I met up with the Goonfather and retrieved my camera, we had all cooled down and I was no longer in the throes of exhaustion. So, no sweaty pictures this time! Haha.

The run was fun. I was at first afraid that I would feel intimidated and drained by the presence of thousands of other runners. Instead, I felt happy and energised.

I felt like I was doing something meaningful because, after all, the event was to raise funds for cancer research.

I completed my 4km in 20 minutes. It’s far from astounding; a goodly bunch of crazy buggers finished 8km in like 30 minutes. But I’m happy.

Running alongside thousands of runners all running for the same cause made me feel alive.

The rain had stopped by the time the run started and the air was pleasantly cool.

When we finished the run, there were bananas, water, isotonic drinks and energy snacks waiting for us.

I didn’t eat anything until ice cream was offered much later.

I’m persona non healtha.

I went to the event with a few Cowboy Bar peeps, but I bumped into Chong in the middle of the run. So we hung out after the race and took some photos.

Chong is a funny subject to photograph but I found a cuter subject.

It’s a cairn terrier.

It’s carrying a pink haversack! OMG!!!

Check out the doggy haversack!!!

Anything that carries a tiny pink haversack is too cute for words!

It was quite a nice day to be hanging out at the beach, even though the sand was wet from the early morning rain. But I’m not really a beachly sort of person, so we left Sentosa at about 10:30 am.

Now, right after a healthy run is a good time to abuse your body with fatty junk.

(For those not equipped with sarcasm radars and might protest to the above statement for its potential to inflict moral damage upon the world’s innocent, please bear in mind that it is advisable to wash your hands after you use the toilet.)

Good ol’ traditional pre-packed nasi lemak.

As traditional, no-frills pre-packed nasi lemak goes, this one is really quite good. Chilli is yummy, rice is fragrant even if cold from being pre-packed, fish is tasty.

You can find it on the corner of Baghdad Street and Bussorah Street.

But now I regret having eaten that. Not because of fat issues, but because a sore throat has stolen upon me overnight. After surviving on potato chips and coco pops all of last week, maybe the nasi lemak tipped the heaty scales into overdrive.

Shucks.

Or maybe it was getting rained on yesterday. I can feel a flu blossoming.

Still, I felt really really good, like really happy and energetic, for a whole six hours after yesterday’s run. Of course, the adrenaline finally pumped itself out and I was a zombie for the rest of the day. But it was a good six hours well-worth waking up at a crazy hour and braving the storm.

The Great Eastern Women 10K is in a month’s time.

I’m not sure if 10km will give me the same adrenaline rush as the 4km did; I might die trying to complete the course since my regular training route goes only as far as 6km and even that stretches my abilities.

And now that I’ve got this flu coming, I won’t be able to train for maybe a week. How to run 10km like that?