SINGAPORE - A little healthy competition and fresh air never hurt anybody. So when the organisers of the popular Cold Storage Kids Run 2013 invited the Manic Family to take part in the race - its sixth instalment - which took place yesterday, one of us stepped up to the starting line.

"I can run very fast," said my elder son Julian confidently, raring to take off like a march hare.

So we fielded him in the Boogey Blue Dash of 800m, for seven- and eight-year-olds. The publicity-shy boy then gave me permission to write about his mass-running exploits.

Once we had registered Julian, we looked forward to the run, which attracted 5,000 runners. Earlier this month, we made an outing of collecting his race bib, T-shirt and goodie bag at the F1 Pit Building.

Worried that he might not have the stamina to complete the entire 800m route, I kept asking the Supportive Spouse, a physical-training instructor in his long-ago national-service days, to take him to a sports stadium to run two rounds of the standard athletic track. But in between the boy's school schedule, aikido, swimming classes and Chinese tuition, there was hardly any time to spare.

Race day dawned. We woke up at 7am to make our way to the Padang, where Julian's event would be flagged off at 8.45am. He donned his race gear and ate scrambled eggs for breakfast. Younger brother Lucien, three, the designated cheerleader, was sleepy and uncharacteristically quiet throughout the journey there.

With Julian deposited in the holding area by the requisite 8.25am, the SS, Lucien and I went to stake out an ace spot next to the starting point to wait for our champion to get set and go. As the boys filed up to take their places, I spotted Julian. He was standing a little away from the pack of aspiring Usain Bolts. When we, his biggest fans, waved to him, he stared straight at us without cracking a smile. No showboating from this guy.

And then they were off. Scores of parents, some pushing strollers, ran across the Padang as swiftly as their offspring on the course - along St Andrew's Road and Connaught Drive - so they could be there, proud, beaming and flashes popping, when Junior crossed the finish line.

I had just parked myself next to the barriers at the side, camera raised to my eye, when a woman unceremoniously chucked herself in front of me. Where's my paparazzi ladder when I need it?

"Give me the camera," said the SS, who spotted me looking short and hapless.

While he went ahead to play photo-journalist in the parents' war zone, I managed to find a low chink in the human barricade and crouched there with Lucien in his pram to wait for his kor kor to stream by triumphantly.

The first contestants were already past the post. And then we saw him: overtaking two other runners on the home stretch, a slight smile on his face as he opened up his strides; my dark horse was coming in.

The boy thought he had come in last. He hadn't, we assured him.

Later, over a big buffet breakfast, we talked about other mass-running events: The Bull Charge, for corporate types, here in November; the famed Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain; and even the ridiculous Running of the Brides bargain-wedding- dress frenzy at the now-bankrupt and closed Filene's Basement department store in the United States.

You live only once, and my son's eyes had been opened to the endurance sporting events out there to be conquered. But, first, he says, there is the Cold Storage Kids Run again next year.

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