Singapore Half Marathon

The Unofficial version.....

Despite a variety of different attempts to late enter the Singapore Half Marathon while I was up here on work I failed :(

So I resolved to run the same distance anyway but by myself as I explored the centre of the island. After a couple of late nights (work socialising) I struggled out of bed at 9am Singapore time and kitted up. I included the waterbottle bumbag as I was sure it would be warm/humid. A bit of stuffing around in trying to get the Garmin to realise this was not Kansas and then I was off. The plan was to run up into the hills in the middle of the island where there are some water reservoirs and it is a little bushier.

At about 7-8km finally I got to the point of not running near major roads and started running on a 2 lane road through the jungle. Wow what an experience. I would have seen about 100+ monkeys, all on the side of the road. Being a little nervous I just kept to my path and kept running, quite a few cars were stopped to take photos and feed them, despite the signs. Also I saw some fairly large lizards, one being the size of a small/medium goanna! The plan was to turn around when the Garmin said 10.5km to get close to a proper out and back half distance.

Coming back down the hill I was starting to wither in the heat and used up the contents of my water bottle just as I arrived near some petrol stations. After sculling a gatorade and then topping up the bottle I was off, but the pace was slowing a bit. At one intersection as I was approaching I saw a car also approaching but as I was distracted my lh foot hit some uneven ground and I stumbled heavily, propping myself up with my left hand/arm and bouncing across the intersection to the amazement of the driver.

I was very glad to get within sight of the hotel and did a little loop to ensure I did knock off the 21.1km. Funny thing is that with some of the early Garmin problems the Sportstracks program actually reckons I did 22.5km!

So I'll take the extra distance and did the run in 1:57:58 (avg pace of 5:14 and avg HR of 174!). It took about 15 minutes standing in the cold shower to stop sweating. I reckon that is the hottest/must humid run I have ever done. Spent the next half hour in the hotel pool and finally felt a little more human again.

A great experience but I must be stark raving mad to be out running in the middle of the day in the tropics! On the way home now, hopefully some consistency in training from this point forward.