Since I was a teen, music has been an important part of my life. Music is my daily source of inspiration and motivation. To me, The Music Run is a perfect combination of two things that I love a lot, running and music. When I found out that The Music Run consists of five music stations (Pop, Rock, Old School, Hip Hop and Dance), I was secretly thrilled because I have a strong inclination towards pop, rock and a little bit of hip hop music. And I thought Old School station is perfect for someone like me who has passed teenage years a lifetime ago.
I was joined by a friend who loves music as well. We made our way to Palawan, Sentosa Island, on a sunny Saturday afternoon via Sentosa Express monorail. As participants of The Music Run (TMR), we were entitled to a free monorail ride into Sentosa. About 90 to 95% of monorail passengers were participants of TMR.
Pre-Race
When we reached Palawan, the first thing we did was collecting our race packs, followed by wearing the wristband in order to gain entry to the race village. We changed into the event T-shirt at the portable toilets which surprisingly didn’t have a queue at all. Then, we spent some time exploring the race village.
Nathan Hartono came on stage at around 4:15 p.m. The crowd sang and jumped along with him when he performed. He was such an energetic performer. The event continued with warm up session and then the flag off at 5:00 p.m.
The Race
The flag off was scheduled to start at 5:00 p.m. Due to the huge number of participants, runners were flagged off in waves. We took our time to decorate ourselves with temporary tattoos while most runners were queuing at the start pen. In the end, we had a very late flag off at 5:40 p.m.
The flag off was full of excitement. Runners put up their hands in the air during the flag off, the energy that these young people radiated was immense.
The first station that we encountered was the Pop Street. My favourite track had to be Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” while my friend loved Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You.” Some runners were definitely in the zone as they danced and sang to the music, but not us as we were too shy.
The second station was the Rock Highway which brought us to some kind of dark tunnel. Inside, there was a long stretch of banners on the wall that served as the photo background. Blink-182 and Queen certainly reminded me how much I enjoyed rock music.
Next was the Old School station, of which I was really looking forward to seeing. *NSYNC and Britney Spears’ songs transported us back to the early 2000s.
To my surprise, there was a line-up of pop stars’ lookalike! As someone who grew up listening to Britney Spears, I was so excited to take a photo with the princess of pop’s not-so-alike replica! Elvis Presley was a bonus! Meanwhile, my friend was joyful to take a photo with the king of pop, Michael Jackson, and Prince.
After passing through 3 stations, it was finally the hydration station. There were cups of mineral water as well as boxes of Pokka’s Sports Water isotonic drink, both were not chilled.
Then it was the Hip Hop Alley, where I found a new favourite song, “Bad Things” by Machine Gun Kelly. The Hip Hop Alley made us run through the Siloso Trail. At the end of the zone, there was another line-up of Hip Hop musicians’ lookalike.
Finally, we arrived at Dance station, where AIA Electric Avenue was located. Rihanna sang in the background as we passed through this station. I noticed some runners were wearing colourful socks, I would love to wear that socks.
Not long afterwards, we reached the Finish line and received our medals. It took us about 1 hour 10 minutes to complete 5km because we walked most of the time and stopped frequently to take photos. No need to rush for a non-competitive run, right?
Post-Race
After the race, we went to Gong Cha booth to get a drink. There were about 10 flavours in the menu but only half of them were available. The lack of option to customise the sugar level was a bummer for me. Nevertheless, we really enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with each other while sipping Gong Cha and enjoying the post-race music festival.
Event Overview
- There were 5 stations: Pop, Rock, Old School, Hip Hop and Dance. Each station played songs from the corresponding music genre.
- The crowd size made the route not easy to run, however, it wasn’t too packed, it had enough space for fast runners to overtake other runners.
- There was no baggage deposit at race village, participants were encouraged to pack light.
- There were plenty of food and drink stalls. Participants had to reload their wristband with money, then made payment with the wristband.
