By the end of November 2010, after 3 months of intensive in-door training and a busy first trimester as a teacher, I was slowly sinking into the "hostility zone". Indeed my "happy mood" barometer had reached a critical point and I was in great need of new goals. On December 6th 2010, I was officially signed up for the May 25th 2011 Singapore half-marathon... and could not wait to start training!
Running a half-marathon is a considerable effort as such; running a half-marathon in Singapore where the average temperature is set to 88° Fahrenheit and the humidity is in the range of 70%-80% is something one definitely needs to train for. Yet the only training places I could think of were dry, ultra air-conditioned indonesian fitness gyms... Until a friend from work told me about a group called JAKARTA FREE SPIRIT:
This is a Jakarta Indonesia based running group that gets together to run the jalans* and kampungs* of the city. We are also know to be crazy enough to training for Marathons held in Singapore and other locales around the world. Facebook.
*jalan: road
*kampung: village
Jakarta Free Spirit organizes practice runs every Saturday (6.30 a.m.) and Sunday mornings (5. a.m.). Yes, this is Jakarta: if you want to avoid millions of people and cars and atrocious humidity, you need to wake up early.
This morning the group (all expatriates) met up at the one and only somewhat green, somewhat clean area in Jakarta: the Ragunan Zoo in Pasar Minggu. We ran a couple sweaty yet reinvigorating 5Ks and were done about an hour later. We congratulated ourselves with a nice cup of coffee, discussed upcoming practice races and were home by 9.
Love C- (Jakarta Free Spirit 2011 registered member :) )
P.S: Thanks Mom for the awesome running gear. Love you.
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