So I returned this past Sunday to hang out with my good friends in Singapore, do extensive swim training, and attempt to win enough marathon prize money to cover months of living in some Laotian jungle.
The half marathon started at 5:15am, seemingly early enough to avoid the heat. But before we had even covered 800 meters, I looked over to my teammate from Tokyo, Omar, who started with me, and exclaimed, "My god it is hot - it is so humid I cannot breathe". I felt like I did when I ran in the high altitude of Denver, Colorado last year. Somehow I still managed to settle into a reasonable 4 minutes pace and start passing people.
The marathon course is good for us people with background in urban planning and real estate development and I pointed out to Omar the whole new amazing skyscraper office district that the Singapore government is constructing at Marina Bay. I am not sure that Omar really cared about the Marina Bay development project -- rather he kept replying about his lack of training and concern about melting. Soon Omar dropped back a bit, and by this time I had lost interest in the splendid sights of Singapore. For a while I concentrated on staying with a pack of Thailand team runners and then when I lost contact with them I concentrated on maintaining good form, then finally I simply concentrated on not giving up. Increasingly I found myself cursing at my expat friends for living in Singapore.
In the end I was pleased to finish in a time of 84 minutes just like two years ago (I am choosing to completely ignore several runners who claimed the course was short). Somehow I seem to run 84 minute half-marathons when I am in sub-optimal conditions or sub-optimal training - Cape Town, Singapore, Katsunuma, Cambodia in 2007..
After the race I told myself that the next time I come to Singapore it will be only for swim events, but likely I will forget about Sunday, and find myself running in Singapore again.
