I’ve been traveling quite a bit for work these past few months. Most recently, I was in Singapore, and I got to run the GU Forest Force Run 30KM Centurion Run – a September trail race in the middle of the country.
Backstory
When I was looking for my 7th continent marathon back in 2023, I signed up for a marathon in Singapore that was part of the Forest Force series. It was taking place on a weekend adjacent to when I needed to be in Singapore for work. Unfortunately, they had to shift the date to another weekend, so I obviously couldn’t make it (flights to Singapore are both long and expensive). They generously refunded the registration fee and were super nice about it – I chatted with the race organizers over WhatsApp and they were super understanding and friendly.
I’m currently training for a long race, so I’m trying to get in a lot of 25-30 mile long runs, and I’m trying to get creative about how to get those miles in on weekends. Part of that strategy is opportunistically signing up for local races. Since I was going to be in Singapore, I hunted around for some races and saw that these same Forest Force guys had a 30k. Sweet deal! Unfortunately, the registration window had closed – but when I pinged the race organizers on WhatsApp, they were able to let me join last minute. I signed up. Guys, the Forest Force folks are great.
Pre-race
First of all, this this website. I have never seen such a Tron-like elevation profile visualization.
On to the actual race day. 30k is about 18.6 miles. I wanted to get into the 25-30 range for mileage today, so I ran from the hotel to the start of the race, about 8 miles. It was a pretty easy run in terms of directions: just a straight shot up north from the hotel. It also took me through a rail trail, which was a fun discovery. The rail trail seems to be about 15 miles long – maybe something to explore in the future! When I got to the race start location, registration was pretty easy, so I ran another 2 miles before the start.
I brought the big hydration pack to Singapore so I could practice with it on this long run. I had about 3.7 liters of liquid in my pack – heaviest ever! I also six Clif bars – not ideal, but they were easy to pack in the suitcase. I felt extremely weighed down at the beginning of the run, and ran very slowly.
Importantly, Singapore is insanely humid. It feels like running through a wet sauna. Throughout the week, my clothing was drenched at the end of every run. I went through a ton of body glide. I brought water on almost every run and refilled it at water fountains. Today was shaping up to be much of the same, so I felt well-prepared with my pack.
Race
They started the race in waves – about 6 or 7 waves in total. Other than the first wave, which was elites / fast people only, all the other waves seemed to be based on whenever you felt like starting. There were no suggested pace times provided, and when I asked around, nobody seemed to know of any guidance for corral seeding. That said, everyone seemed to self-seed in a pretty self-aware way. Maybe this is a cultural difference from the U.S., but it also didn’t seem like people were like, jostling for position to get into a particular wave. The waves went off every 5ish minutes, which was actually a pretty good spread because it didn’t feel congested at any point on the course.
I started at the back of wave 3 and pretty much stayed with those folks throughout.
The first half mile of the course is on a sidewalk, and then you have to cross a major street. The race announcer made it clear that we had to “not go if the light was red,” e.g. no jaywalking. I sprinted to make the first light so I wouldn’t have to wait.
We headed into a forested area for a bit – our first real trail – then onto this open field that seemed to run parallel to a freeway. This grassy corridor had a single-track trail that meandered through it, but it was very easy to pass by running on the grass. I remembered running this section from when I had been in Singapore previously and did my “trans-con” Singapore run (where I ran from the northern border to the southern border of Singapore). It turns out that a lot of the race would be familiar to me from having done that route.
My nutrition and hydration plan was to be self-supported, because I had the huge pack with 3.7L of water, some salt tabs, and snacks. I was eating the snacks I had packed, and that was working well for calories. However, the aid stations had cold hydration – both water and electrolytes. I tried some of the electrolyte drink and it was AMAZING – perhaps mainly because it was cold. The drink was called 100Plus, and my body reacted so positively to it that I had to look up if there was caffeine in it (there was not, surprisingly)
We then headed into a very long out & back on a sidewalk. I like out & backs in general, because it’s fun to be able to see the field and how everyone is doing. I can’t say this section was the most scenic, because it featured freeway overpasses and a maze-like construction zone.
However, I did see some monkeys, which was really cool! I remembered seeing monkeys in this section of the park when I had visited a few years ago; I wonder if they were the same group.
On the way back, we headed into the most forested part of the race. I definitely had run some of this section when I was here a few years ago, and I had forgotten how tough the trail is. The trail a combination of degraded asphalt, dirt, tennis-ball-sized rocks, packed sand, and roots. Really quite difficult for footing, but it was great to be back in the trees, and I did not faceplant.
Two other observations:
- The forest is NOT quiet. The bugs are so loud – it’s really cool to hear. It’s not clear if the cars on the road were louder or the bugs were!
- With respect to my friends who are mountain bikers, it turns out that mountain bikers are kind of jerks in Singapore (just as they are often in the U.S.). The complete lack of announcing their presence, as well as taking up whatever side of the trail they wanted (or, the whole trail!) was rough.
After that section was another very long out and back on the grassy corridor from earlier. Myself and many others were visibly demoralized due to 1/ how long this section felt and 2/ that it was at the end of the race. We gave each other encouragement, as well as guidance to how much further the turnaround was. The turnaround itself was just a sign at an intersection, which was a bit weird. Usually a turnaround has a timing mat, a volunteer, or a box of rubber bands (that a runner would grab to prove they were there); otherwise, it’s very easy to cut a section of the course (e.g., cheat) and there’s no way to prove it. Anyway, I recruited a couple of runners who reached the turnaround with me as accountability buddies. We agreed that, if there were any questions that we had done that section, we would vouch for each other that we had all been there and seen each other there.
The last mile or so was on pavement – the same sectionas the beginning of the race – then we were done!
I finished 160th out of 429 finishers (men and women), which is pretty good for having run 10 miles beforehand and not actually racing this event. I was 22nd woman (out of ?? – we don’t know how many women), which seems extremely suspicious / I don’t rust the results (but also, not a ton of women runners, so, maybe!)
Reflections
Ultrarunning (of which trail running is a close cousin) is having a bit of a moment. In 2025, more than 150,000 people finished an ultra of any distance. This is 3x the number of ultra finishers as 15 years ago. What this means is that there is a lot of innovation happening in the field of ultrarunning. New gear, new race formats, new nutrition and hydration approaches, new training methodologies, new race-day technology, and more. As with any innovation, adoption and ideation has to start somewhere. With ultrarunning, a lot of that innovation is happening in a couple of hotspots: California, Arizona, Colorado, a few places in Europe. That means that, living in California, and specifically in Silicon Valley (known for innovation!), we see a lot of that innovation in ultrarunning first.
It’s always fun to run somewhere different, because it is interesting to see what other places choose to pick up from the latest stable of innovations. Not all innovation is ultimately successful or widely adopted. Some examples of things at this race that were a bit different than what I am used to:
- Self-seeded corrals. In many places in the world, this approach would fail catastrophically. For example, in America, everyone wants to be first / at the front, regardless of actual capabilities. At this race in Singapore, people self-seeded appropriately to their pace, and with little drama
- Gear: there was a guy wearing a COMICAL amount of expensive, and very new, gear for this race. Satisfy hat and vest, ATG shirt (the one with the holes), Oakley sunglasses (are they even good for running? who knows), and Nike shoes.
- Trails: I appreciate *so much* the fact that we have such great trails here in Northern California. This race was framed as a trail race, but 1/ a lot of it was on pavement, and 2/ even the trails weren’t great to run on. I also know that this is pretty much the only place in Singapore where there are trails to run (in Singapore’s defense, it’s a pretty small country). I see this as an example of a region wanting to adopt something that the geography isn’t perfectly suited for, but the desire to do it is so strong that they’re willing to do whatever it takes. Very cool.
- Pre-race announcing: instead of setting up a speaker system, the announcer just walked around with a megaphone attached to a speaker he was wearing. Much easier!
- Photos: I think they took 10,000 photos for 500 runners?! Insanity volume!
Anyway – overall, a really fun day on a unique course. The staff and volunteers were absolutely spectacular. I continue to love visiting Singapore, and events like this are a big reason why!
