Daddy left home at 3.00 am this morning for his 21 km race at the Army Half Marathon this morning, and the plan was to meet him there in time for the 800m Father and Child Challenge after. Due to road closures, the taxi decided to drop us off at One Raffles Link at about 8.00 am and we had to navigate our way to the Esplanade through the underground City Link Mall.
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| You know when you're approaching the Esplanade when even the walkways spring to life with art... |
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| An interesting exhibit along the way showcasing artwork by children their age! |
Arriving at the Esplanade Theatres at about 8.15 am, we linked up with Daddy and had a little bit of time to pose for photos with the SAFRA mascots before A and Daddy left for the starting line. We hung around a little hoping to catch some photographs of the start before proceeding to our rendezvous point at City Hall.
On the way to the start, Daddy and A were given masks to participate in a Singapore Book of Records attempt to have the largest gathering of masked people.
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| A dentist's dream come true! Wish we had such straight teeth. |
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| Hmmm... not in a photographic mood under the hot sun. A just wants to get started with the run! |
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| Hustle and bustle before the warm-up formalities! |
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| The energetic emcees led us in a series of dance routines to warm up for the run! |
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| The dads were being all sporty and enthusiastic in front of their kids! |
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| It's time for the record breaking attempt. Each mask is marked with a unique serial number. Can you spot ours? |
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| A one minute long dance routine accompanied the record breaking attempt for largest gathering of masked participants... did they make it? |
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| Fascination with the overhead drone taking our pictures! Smiiiiile! |
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| Just before the start of the run... |
The second record-breaking attempt was to have the largest number of persons running whilst holding hands. Children and their fathers were to hold hands throughout the entire 800m run. A religiously made sure Daddy did not let go. What a wonderful symbol of our childhood journey isn't it? Well, there'll still come a time when we need to release our little ones, but the time is not now... phew!
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| Minister for Social and Family Development Mr Chan Chun Sing about to flag us off. |
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| And off we go! |
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| Crossing Esplanade bridge. |
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| The sun was hot and by the time we reached 400m, many of the participants had slowed to a stroll... |
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| Daddy and A succumbed to the heat and decided to walk to the end. However, they never once did let go of each other as instructed. |
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| Entering the final hundred metres... the crowd starts to get thicker here with the merging of the 10 km runners in the finishing chute. |
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| The bottle neck of dads and their kids funneling through to receive their hard earned finisher medals and 100 Plus drinks! It took us over ten minutes in line to exit the area. |
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| Bouncing castles, but we weren't interested today as the sun was getting hot... on our way to City Hall for some air-conditioning! |
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| Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! |
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| Extremely proud of her Finishers' Medal. |
We proceeded to the basement of City Link Mall to check out some breakfast options, and settled at
Simply Wraps for some waffle sets and salads. Nothing comes cheap, however, at City Hall, but it was a nice way to celebrate Daddy's awesome half-marathon timing earlier in the day and have a slow Sunday morning breakfast together.
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| Daddy's 'Build Your Own' (BYO) salad is a healthy reward for a race well run! |
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| The Ceasar Salad was so-so, but it was hot with the girls, who pretty much wolfed down half of it, professing some 'love' of veggies for a change. |
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| The waffles were cold, damp and soft... so much so that for the first time in a long time, the kiddos opted not to finish something sweet in favour of vegetables instead! |
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| However, the hot-chocolate drinks accompanying the set saved the day. |
We caught a cab off to church for our 11.00 am service after that. What a morning. By lunch time, the younger girl was dozing off, courtesy of the 6.00 am wake up call on a Sunday. Well, it was worth it wasn't it?
Till the next run... and to all who ran today, hope you had fun.
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