More than the 65,000 runners participated in Sunday's Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore, as part of the event's biggest-ever field, the race - which was introduced in 1982 - got under way at 5am as 20,000 full marathon (42.195km) participants were flagged off in front of Mandarin Gallery. Over at Sentosa Gateway, another 19,700 runners were cheered on at the start of their 21.1km half marathon by 2m-tall mascots of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee from the Transformers movie franchise.