Singaporean runner Soh Rui Yong might not be representing the country at the Asian Games, but he’s definitely still running competitively.
Recently, he took part in a race in the United Kingdom (UK) and casually broke a national record.
Source: Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team
He reportedly did this without any preparation at all as he forgot that he had signed up.
In a Facebook post on Saturday (12 Aug), Soh, 32, said he took part in the Sri Chinmoy Kangaroo Hop 5k on Tuesday (8 Aug).
Source: Soh Rui Yong on Facebook
The 5km road race, organised by sporting events organiser Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, took place in London’s Battersea Park.
He ran the race after a full day of work, he said — though he worked from home.
Despite running the race after work, Soh managed to come in third in the Men’s Under 50 category, behind Nick Bester (first) and Matthew Rallison.
Source: Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team
While that’s impressive enough, even more impressive was his final timing of 15 minutes 15 seconds — just 9s after the first-place winner.
This is a new Singapore road 5km record, he said.
However, he described it as a “soft record”, as it’s still 31s slower than one of his existing records.
On 17 July 2021, he clocked a time of 14 mins 44.21s at the Singapore Athletics All Comers Meet 4, breaking the men’s 5,000m national record on a track.
Though the UK race was a community event, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t competitive.
Soh said a total of 19 runners came in at under 16 minutes, and 74 finished the race below 17 minutes.
Source: Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team
He also highlighted that a 59-year-old woman, Clare Elms, notched a timing of 18:04, finishing top in the Women’s Over 50 category.
Check out the full results here.
Soh was initially supposed to have run the race with a friend, he told The Straits Times (ST).
He was there to pace his friend, who was aiming for a time of below 16 minutes.
However, his friend couldn’t make it, but he decided to run anyway.
In fact, Soh almost didn’t make it for the race himself as he’d gone to Paris Disneyland with his girlfriend the weekend before to celebrate his birthday.
He remembered that he’d signed up only on Monday (7 Aug), when he returned to London and found out that they’d sent him the race tag.
Thus, he made no preparations at all for the race, and “didn’t really know what to expect”.
Soh has pledged to work on improving his timing the next opportunity he has to run a road 5km.
His next two races are back in Singapore, in the SAFRA Singapore Bay Run and Army Half Marathon on 27 Aug and the Pocari Sweat Run from 9 to 10 Sep.
He will then take part in the World Athletics Road Running Championships in Latvia from 30 Sep to 1 Oct.
What he will not be taking part in, though, is the Asian Games in Hangzhou from 23 Sep to 8 Oct.
That’s because he was left out of the national contingent by the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC).
This is despite his stellar performance at the 32nd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in May, where he bagged a silver medal in the 10,000km final and even broke a national record in the process.
Perhaps the powers that be might reconsider their decision given his latest achievement.
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Featured image adapted from Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team and Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team.
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