July to Nov 2020 – Post Circuit Breaker

Since mid-June, Singapore entered Phase 2 of its post circuit-breaker. Selected activities were allowed to resume along with safety measures of personal hygiene, safe distancing and group size limit.

For the sporting community, mass events were still out of reach and virtual races became the norm to compete and complete anytime and anywhere without crowd gathering.

We towerrunners also followed the safety advisories and resumed our stairs practice. Returning to train together was a big relief and huge boost to help push one another and improve.

Soon a small group of us volunteered to have a simple time trial at the stairs with these guidelines in mind – safe, friendly yet challenging. The challenge was simple yet oh-so-hard: how fast can you climb up a 50 floor building? This is the essence of the sport of towerrunning- we race up buildings using the stairs. Normally in a towerrunning race we race against others to see who reaches the top first, but in the spirit of the time-trials we were really racing against ourselves. Could we go faster than we have before? Could we push ourselves, train hard, and set a personal best? After running our first time trial in September and another in October and November we had our answer, a resounding YES. The time trials were fun, successful, and had us engaged just as if we were doing a real race. We do look forward to more to come.  

Safety measures were our top priority throughout. Everyone adhered to the safety requirements from distancing and masking up (except when climbing the stairs) to using the hand sanitisers before and after the climb.

Keeping to the group size limit, participants spread out neatly keeping safe distance requirements and were admitted to the stairs at specified intervals. 

With each countdown and “GO”, our runners made their ascent to the 50^th floor with 100% effort. Most clocked their best time ever. Some made a grand finish.

Post time-trial, towerrunners left notes of thanks for a “Sunday morning of runners’ high”. They also appreciated that the line-up and countdown were executed smoothly and enjoyed “the physical race energy” which is missing in virtual races. Indeed, it was the co-operation and support of all present that made the event a success. 　

The results from our time trials can be seen below:

PINNACLE @DUXTON TIME TRIALS – 2020

FINISH AT 50^TH FLOOR. SELF-TIMED

Date:  8-Sept-2020
Stairwell:  1
Start at floor:  3

Date:  4-Oct-2020
Stairwell:  5
Start at floor:  2

Date:  1-Nov-2020
Stairwell:  5
Start at floor:  2

For now, we are back to our weekly grind. Training, waiting, more training, and more waiting. We train and wait for the day COVID eases enough to allow towerrunning races to go ahead again. We also train for the sake of training- to stay fit and healthy, to challenge ourselves in this unique sport, to experience the thrill of climbing to the top, and to enjoy the camaraderie among our members. We welcome any interested persons to join our training sessions by becoming a member. Experience the challenging but fulfilling sport of towerrunning with us. One step or two at a time. May we see you at our next training session or activity start line soon!