Faster?

I don't know how I managed to get through the journey back without sleeping, but I seemed to manage. I think I dozed for a few hours on the Seattle-Narita leg, but I was resolute in staying awake all the way back to Singapore. That was made easier by the entertainment system working (it had burped, stuttered and hiccuped all the way from Seattle to Narita), but the downside was that I watched The Muppets (slightly overlong), Bridesmaids (a bunch of horrible, horrible women being horrible to one another) and The Hangover 2 (a bunch of horrible, horrible men being horrible to themselves and everyone in Thailand). The only thing that the last film taught me is that you can be a 'bro', popped collar and all, and also have sex with men, as long as they're Thai men with breasts and miniskirts. Ain't nothing wrong with ladyboys in foreign countries, apparently. Perhaps that's some subversive message the filmmakers were trying to sneak into the Hangover sequel. No, probably not.

So, exhausted, cross-eyed, I got a taxi back from Changi and was home by 1 in the morning, then up again at 6 to get a run in before work. I knew I wasn't going to be in a fit state to run this evening.

What surprised me was how fast I went. If you've had that much sleep deprivation you don't get to run that quickly; I did 10k and only went slower than 5 minutes per kilometre once. It didn't feel like I was pushing hard (apart from the last 2 k, where things started to feel like they were going wrong in my chest and I wondered if I was going to make it). I thought that after my week in Seattle's cool air, I was going to revert to form when I got back to the heat and sweat of Singapore, but apparently not.

I put it down in part to what I was drinking; I had my first bottle of Accelerade, a combination carbohydrate-protein-disgusting-berry-flavouring that is supposed to make you go quick. Perhaps it was the power of 100% pure placebo, perhaps it was because I'm used to running with nothing more exciting than water in my bottle, but I went off at a fair old lick and never really slowed that much until I was done.

It may just have been the last gasp of adrenaline before I keel over. We'll find out tomorrow when I have to run up a hill 6 times to prove myself. Not quite the 12 tasks of Hercules, but we'll get there, eventually.

After that exertion, one thing was normal: I had to wander around the flat, sweating, for half an hour, before my body decided that was enough and I could get dry enough for a shower to make sense. The work day wasn't so bad after that: I imagine that the run had woken me up enough to get me through things, and although I was ravenous and had to keep running over the road to the Starbucks to purchase more overpriced baked goods, I didn't fall asleep at my desk, and managed to get home and not crash out until 6:30. So, a victory of sorts. We'll have to see whether tomorrow makes me feel wonderful or not.