So the Standard Chartered Marathon has been and gone for another year, leaving torn energy gel wrappers, blistered feet and 65,000 smug grins in its wake. What lessons did we learn this time around?1. We need a new sponsor. Forget all the talk of an efficient, innovative event. Fact is that their blue and green kit is terribly passé. It used to be a kind of trophy; now half the people in the gym are wearing it. You want to be a fashion-forward city, Singapore? Then your running kit needs to make a statement, too. We look forward to the Official Maison Martin Margiela Marathon. Put down your tatty singlet, pick up your deconstructed starch white muslin tracksuit!2. Three starting points is not enough. Congestion was still a problem, especially where the half and full routes merged. Better, we think, to give everyone their own personal starting point on the edge of the island and have them all run toward the middle. Film it from above, speed it up and you’d have the kind of evocative time-lapse image beloved of nature documentaries. Call it “The Flocking of the Former Fatties” and sell it to StarHub.3. Scrap Sentosa. Roads too narrow, distractions too great. Unofficial reports suggest more than 30% of participants stopped to refuel at Tanjong Beach Club and never got back on their feet. At Universal Studios’ newly-opened Transformers: The Ride, one of the much-fancied local favorites mistook Bumblebee for a pace car and set off in completely the wrong direction. And what of last year’s winner, Kenneth Mungara, who was a no-show at the finish line? Rumors persist that he fainted suddenly at his first sight of the giant Merlion.4. All-night trains are for life, not just for Christmas. The biggest winners last weekend? Not the runners, but everyone else out partying on Saturday night. For once, we could take an MRT train home whenever we felt like it, thanks to an extended, marathon-related schedule. No more waiting around for cabs that never come, no more circuitous bus journeys. It’s time to extend this beyond just one weekend. Concerned that noise will be a problem for residents along the line? Consider it a trade-off for the skyrocketing price of their property.
