Goodbye Fitbit Surge. Hello Garmin Fenix 5S.

It was still dark when I woke up at 3 am on Sunday 29 October. Auckland Marathon starts at 6 am so I had enough time to eat a proper breakfast and somehow get to the start line.

Here we go again... just one week after running Kuching Marathon I signed up for another race... Auckland Marathon. I had to, I made a new year's resolution to run 4 marathons in 2017 and that was the one I wanted to keep. Auckland was going to be my 4th one in the calendar year and 6th since my first marathon 13 months ago.

Almost immediately after signing up for my first ever 10km race I jumped on the internet to find a training plan. A plan that will tell me what, how and when I should train to achieve my goal... and it worked.

On 16 of October 2016 I ran my first marathon, Melbourne Marathon. After months of training, running 5 half-marathons, sidetracking injuries and sicknesses I've finally done it... and got totally hooked.

Kuching Marathon is one of the biggest marathons in Borneo and one of the most interesting ones in Malaysia. In 2017 it took place on 13 of August with full marathon, half marathon, 10 and 5km categories. I was running the full one, starting at 1 am!

I arrived in Kuching at nearly midnight on Wednesday 9th August, after 3 hours delay in Kuala Lumpur. Got an immediate temperature shock. It was 7C in Melbourne in the morning and here, here was at least 26C and very, very humid.

Even before I ran my Kuala Lumpur marathon I signed up for another race in Malaysia - Kuching Marathon.

If you would ever visit Mandalay city in central Myanmar, please wake up early one day and go for a run around the Mandalay Palace and get ready for some real running magic.

In tropical countries marathons almost always start somewhere at night or at least well before the sunrise... for obvious reasons... it's hot. Kuala Lumpur was no exception.