SINGAPORE - After the coronavirus pandemic outbreak a year ago, national athlete Soh Rui Yong considered retiring after finding himself in a slump.

He told The Straits Times: "I was getting ready for big marathons and suddenly, the whole world came to standstill. And I thought maybe it was time to move on from sports, but I felt I wasn't the same person so eventually I decided to get some excitement and ambition back.

"The positive energy and excitement I get comes from running, chasing my goals and being fit."

After "half a year of good training", he has been enjoying a stellar year since he started racing again.

Soh broke the men's 5,000m national record with a time of 14min 44.21sec at the Singapore Athletics (SA) All Comers Meet 4 on Saturday (July 17). His record is pending ratification by SA.

The previous mark of 14:51.09sec was set by Mok Ying Ren at the Tokai University Time Trials in Tokyo in 2011.

At the SA All Comers Meet 2 earlier in March, Soh's first track race in almost two years, he won the 1,500m in 4:05.19sec and qualified for the SEA Games at the same time.

He also clocked a new personal best (PB) of 4:01sec in the 1,500m last week.

With Saturday's result, Soh, 29, now holds four national records. The others are in the men's 10,000m (31:15.95, set in 2014), half-marathon (1:06:41, 2019) and marathon (2:23:44, 2019).

Speaking to The Straits Times after the race, he said: "I was super happy because I've set the records in the 10,000m, half-marathon and marathon so the 5,000m was the last distance record that I had yet to break.

"One point I'm satisfied with is that I set the record in Singapore. Usually, none of the distance running records are set here because of the heat and humidity. It was quite warm today but I didn't want to think so much about that.

"So I want to show Singapore runners that we are able to run fast here, we just have to get into shape and have good preparation."

To prepare for the race, Soh has been training twice a week with fellow distance runners Ethan Yan and Jeevanesh Soundararajah, who are both coached by Soh's old coach Steven Quek.

He does light jogs by himself the rest of the week, with one long run on Saturdays.
He also gave credit to his training partners and Quek, who gave him the confidence he would achieve his goal.

Soh said: "It's nice to have partners to do the hard sessions with and having a coach to oversee training. I've known Mr Quek for very long.

"It's nice to have a familiar face in training to give you encouragement. I think that believing you can set a national record is difficult and psychology is always a big part of the game is.

"Mr Quek came to me and said he believed I could break the national record so having him say that was a big boost psychologically. It added pressure too but in this case, it was positive pressure."

After seeing Soh in training, Quek was confident that he would break the 5,000m national record in Singapore.