Bay East Garden parkrun, Singapore

Last parkrunday I visited Bay East Garden parkrun in Singapore for the first time. This was my first parkrun in Singapore and it brings the tally of parkrun countries I have visited to 11. And 2 out of 3 in Asia Pacific, since a about a year and a half ago I had the pleasure to visit the gorgeous Presint 18 parkrun, just outside Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia.

This was also a special parkrunday for me, since it was my 250th event. In absolute terms, not yet my 250th venue, on that tally I am still at 156. I did run quite a few times at my local in Wimbledon Common and at nearby events back in the days. I did not plan the trip for this milestone though, it was a lucky accident coming from a business trip. I just had to leave London a couple of days early. And since Singapore is not around the corner, if you want to be there for parkrunday, you need to leave London on Thursday night, landing there on Friday evening, local time.

My parkrun trip was a tale of luck and its dreadful opposite. Lucky because the combination of wildfires in Indonesia and a regional volcano erupting was creating inconsistent but heavy haze around the region. I knew the previous week some KL events had to cancel, but I knew nothing of the broader issues. Not until I met a couple of parkrunners outside my hotel at 6.45am on parkrunday and they told me Bay East Garden parkrun had warned on Friday evening that they might have to cancel. We braved the trip with no further news and it all worked out, fortunately.

Unlucky, because I am a moron. A jet-lagged, brainless moron, and I run the whole event with the lens cover on my GoPro camera. So no Ingoruns video highlights for this one. Really sad. The only similar accident I had was when I drove to Foots Cray Meadows parkrun forgetting my camera. That was a bit closer, so eventually I went back and shot my highlights. This is a bit further out of the way, so I doubt I will run it again.

Not because I don’t think I will be back to Singapore. But there are 4 other events here and 2 more have recently (re)-launched in nearby Malaysia, so when I come back to the region, I am sure I will try one or two of the other ones. Sad though, because I had picked Bay East Garden parkrun specifically because it is the one that offers the most striking views of the beautiful, iconic Singapore Marina Bay. Oh well, shit happens, I guess.

Anyway, enough with my rumblings. It’s time to dive into some more info about Bay East Garden, Singapore!

Trip to Bay East Garden parkrun and parking

Bay East Garden parkrun is in Singapore, so most of the readers of this site will have a very long flight to reach. Or, hopefully, they will do it as part of a trip to South East Asia, be it leisure or business. Singapore is a wonderful place to visit in its own merit, and it is often the gateway for the rest of South East Asia, if you are trying to fly there from Europe.

One important note for people travelling from the UK or other European countries: the combination of time difference and a flight lasting more than 13 hours, means that you have to leave well in advance to be there in time for parkrun. From London, I had to leave on Thursday evening, with a flight from Heathrow around 7:30pm. That got me in Singapore on Friday late afternoon, with enough time for a leisurely dinner and some sleep before parkrun. Ignoring the long flight, immigration into Singapore is quite convenient: just fill out the pre-landing clearance online and you will be able to use the automatic passport machines at arrival. And get through in a matter of minutes! Beware of scams: the official government website to submit it is free. If you google it, a number of the first results are services charging you for it. Avoid.

Finding a hotel in Singapore will not be difficult. The city is full of hotels and hostels, spanning from ultra luxury to budget friendly. I stayed at the Carlton Hotel Singapore. The central location is great, rooms and facilities are ok, but I would only recommend it if you catch a cheap offer, as I did. I had to come back to Singapore later in the week to end my business trip and the Carlton was priced as a full 5-star then. Not worth it, I tried a different one, the Paradox Hotel. Better rooms, leisure vibe and nice location by a riverside entertainment area.

And now we have reached parkrunday morning. CAUTION: parkrun here starts at 7:30am, not 9am! If you made it all the way here you will probably know that, but just to make sure. And it makes sense, the humidity is excruciating, a 9am start would be torture. If you want to reach the event using public transport, the official event site suggests a bus route operational early enough to get there or the Stadium underground station as the closest one. Stadium MRT will be about 1.5K away from Bay East Garden parkrun meeting point.

I went by cab. The local car hailing app is called Grab and it works very well, usually finding drivers within 10 minutes. My car ride took about 15 minutes from my city centre hotel and cost me less than 10 pounds. As suggested by the official site, input Passion Wave carpark (11 Rhu Cross) as destination. As the taxi enter the car park, you will see the meeting point just a few metres away.

Bay East Garden parkrun: start and briefings

From the car park, you can see parkrunners and volunteers coming together under the major bridge crossing the bay. I guess this location is convenient in case of showers and it also provides some shade after the event. The event does not seem to have the traditional pop up name sign, but it had the cardboard selfie frame, for visitos who wanted to take one.

At 7:15 on an early September parkrunday, it was hot, but not terrible. What gets you here is the humidity and you will not fear the worst of it until you are in the open on the path, running. Or trying to.

The First Timers Briefing and the Main Briefing kind of merged into one. I am sure Bay East Garden parkrun receives a consistently large contingent of tourists, being the scenic option in such an international transport hub. The volunteer giving the briefing spent a good amount of time on hydration and I get it. Having something to drink during the run could have been a good idea with the obscene amount of sweat I produced. He mentioned there is a place where you can get water by the start, but all I saw was a vending machine. They all seem to accept contactless here, which is handy.

We were also told that we would be sharing the path with a large, organised 10K this morning. It was fun, with a lot of people running a very similar route, but we had to pay attention to the specific parkrun turning points, because the other route was going longer on both sides of the out and back straight.

It was also nice to take a picture with the team to celebrate my 250, nice touch and great hospitality! As the briefing moved towards the end, everyone was asked to come closer together over the start line.

After a short countdown, the time came. Parkrun.

Bay East Garden parkrun course review – star ratings

Bay East Garden parkrun course review – route highlights

There were 75 parkrunners on the day of my visit to Bay East Garden parkrun, Singapore. This is around the bottom end of the range, when looking at average attendance levels. Maybe people got spooked by the haze-related uncertainty, maybe there were fewer tourists around, who knows. Average attendance levels seems to be hovering around 100, with some spikes above that. Recently, 8/8/26 saw a major peak of 197 parkrunners and parkwalkers. Since on the day of my visit we were sharing the path with a major race and there were no issues, I am sure that field still allowed people to fully enjoy the event. Maybe the cafe looked a bit busy afterwards, though.

Congestion is never really a problem on this course. The path is wide and, even if it is popular with other users and cyclists, you always have more than enough room to run and overtake if you want to. The only quirk relates to its design as a double out and back. You will have to turn-around 180-degrees three times. And funnily, volunteers will act as human cones, because the team is not authorised to place actual cones. The race was though.

Surface-wise, it is all smooth tarmac. A good running surface for road or race shoes, so go for it if you want to. Unless you are conditioned for Singapore’s humidity, though, do not expect a PB. It is brutal and the sun will start hitting you in the face earlier than you would have hoped for, leaving your hotel in the dark.

Elevation-wise, we are looking at 17m elevation gain over two nearly perfectly straight laps. Not completely flat, but as close as it gets. I did feel a slight uphill on the way out and a slight downhill on the way back, but I wonder if that was purely my mind playing tricks on me or perspective. There is no real climb here anyway, elevation won’t enter the equation.

In scenic terms, this seems to be the event to go to in Singapore. The iconic views on the other side of the bay are postcard-worthy and they will be with you for the whole run. Besides that, at the moment you only see construction barriers on the in-land side of the path. Soon, that might become a nice green park with the Founders memorial. In any case, the bay-side way is worth remembering.

In terms of course layout, it is quite simple. A nearly perfectly straight out and back, run twice. The start end finish are on an additional segment connecting the river to the waterside promenade.

A quick Relive route plot is on my YouTube Channel, with third party video highlights embedded below.

The course description won’t be long. But views will keep you interested throughout and, if not, surviving the humidity will.

As you start from under the bridge, run straight on a slight left-leaning angle for about 50 metres, before reaching the promenade. When you get there, turn left and you are on the main segment. From here, it will be a long, 1.2k segment heading towards the turning point. The main sights on your right are immediately visible, but they will offer the best picture angle about 2/3 into the segment. You can delay picture time a little. You will be grateful for the short break later on, I promise you.

On the day of my visit, about 100m before the turnaround point there were some construction works, taking away about 1/3 of the path. It created a bit of a bottleneck, but only because we were sharing the path with a rather large organised race. Shortly after that, the human cone was waiting for us, shouting profusely that that was the turnaround point for parkrun, not for the race. I hope nobody got lost. During the were told that if you don’t turn, you will eventually reach East Coast Park parkrun… it will be significantly more than 5k however, if I just spot look at it on the map.

Hoping nobody got lost, turn around and keep going up the path. You are now keeping to the side of the path close to the water, so you will soon reach the best spot to click a picture. Go for it, it is worth it. And this is not going to be a PB day anyway. Eventually you reach the point where you had originally turned onto the path. This time, a second human cone is high viz is there waiting and shouting through the race induced chaos. Turn around her again and do it all once again.

The second time you get back here, take a right turn and, if any liquids are left in your body, go for a 50m sprint to reach the finish funnel under the bridge.

Congratulations on completing Bay East Garden parkrun, Singapore!

Facilities at Bay East Garden parkrun, Singapore

Bay East Garden is a large green and munumental area on the opposite side from the traditional landmarks you might know Marina Bay from. However, the Garden is currently under development and has been for quite a while. The waterfront promenade is the only part currently open, with the rest of the venue expected to open sometimes in 2027. By the bridge, there is a fully completed residential development, which hosts toilets, the cafe, the car park and a vending machine. Maybe there is more, I did not explore the area beyond that.

After the event, walk from the finish funnel back up towards the residential buildings and turn left. Follow the walkway about 100m back to the waterside and you will find the Kontiki cafe. A nice little cafe with a substantial, relaxing outdoor sitting area and friendly staff.

I ordered an espresso, a humongous French toast reminding me a cubic croissant and a whole jug of ice tea. Yeah, a whole jug of ice tea for myself only. And I finished the thing, that’s how much sweat Singapore weather forced me to make up for.

Bay East Garden parkrun, Singapore: Video Highlights

Unfortunately, this time, no video from me. The cursed lens cover defeated me. Or my idiocy, one of them.

That said, I found a nice video on YT crated by another keen parkrunner, Scotty. Hope he does not mind me putting it up here: give a look at his channel, Scotty’s Running World.

My other parkrun videos on my YouTube channel are all linked on the course review and video highlights summary page.

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Achievements and performance

Conclusions

Last time I was in the region on business, I stopped at Presint 18 parkrun, this time I had to visit one event in Singapore. And Bay East Garden offers visuals that make it an unforgettable experience.

The venue is definitely worth a visit and the team was great. To top it all up, the little shaded cafe felt like paradise, probably also because of the massive jug of iced tea I ordered after sweating half my body weight.

Finally, obviously, thank you, Bay East Garden parkrun team for your hospitality!

Bay East Garden parkrun, Singapore