Oops I did it again...

 21km at 4am in 28 Degree Heat

Here's me at the start of the bridge race in December - I look thoroughly unconvinced...

The finisher's t-shirt was quite nice!

You would have thought I would have learned from experience, but no. After doing the Penang Bridge Half Marathon in December - a nightmare of sweat, discomfort, disjointed time and fatigue - I swore off distance running in the tropics. It is just too difficult, too unpleasant and too damaging.

Then along came a half marathon just down the road from the school. Ooh, convenient!

Except it isn't. I live a well documented 50 minute drive away. However, this didn't stop me from signing up again. Nor did it stop the plethora of colleagues who also signed up for either the 10km or the full 21km. 

Will we never learn? Apparently not.

Running in Malaysia is just not an enjoyable experience. At least running at a reasonable pace is not. I complete a half marathon distance in the UK at around the 2 hour mark - a shade under on a good day, over on a less good one, but consistently my finish times are within about 10 minutes of each other.

Out here it is closer to 2 hours and 30 minutes and realistically pushing towards 2 hours and 40 minutes. To run in these conditions requires a lot of preparation - I'm going to need to look at hydration, energy gels and using all of the water stops. The last time I think I used every water stop that there was after about 7km and they had them every couple of kilometres towards the end - this time I will definitely need to stop at every one across the whole course. 

Anyhoo, I'm off to sort my kit out and get some rest before I go and do what is definitely the very last half half marathon that I will do in the tropics - Yeah, I know, I said that last time, but given that we are leaving in 6 weeks I don't think even I can inadvertently sign up to another race in that time.