Australia & Singapore / 26 Aug – 8 Sep 2026
Sydney was meant to be a race and a week of eating. It became a race, a week of eating, and an unplanned residency in Singapore courtesy of an ash cloud over the Sunda Strait.
The marathon is the reason the trip happened. The volcano is the reason it ran four days long. This hub holds the route and the planning notes; the three chapters hold the days themselves.
A race trip that turned into a food trip that turned into a waiting room.
The first half is structured around a start line: shakeout run, race pack, rest day, alarm at five. The second half is the city you actually get to enjoy once your legs stop mattering.
The third half, which wasn’t supposed to exist, is Singapore.
An eight-hour transit in Singapore on the way out felt long at the time and now reads as foreshadowing. Nine days in Sydney built around race day on the 30th. Then a return through Singapore that took four days to finish.
If you are running a major on less training than you meant to do, this is what that week looks like from the inside — including the part where the finish time is not the one you wanted.
Trip Chapters
Read in order if you want the arc: the build-up and the race, then the city once the legs stop mattering, then the extension nobody asked for.
01 / Race week
A shakeout run, a race pack, one disappointing pastry, and forty-two kilometres I hadn’t trained for.
Start Race week
02 / After the race
Bondi, a library I didn’t expect to like, a zoo with a skyline behind it, and the best meal of the trip.
Start After the race
03 / The Singapore extension
A cancelled flight, two free days that felt like a gift, then two more that felt like a bill.
Start The Singapore extensionSydney in late August was comfortable to run in and comfortable to walk around afterwards, and the beaches were still quiet enough to lie on without negotiating for space.
Sea urchin and oysters. DOPA is the best sit-down meal of the trip; Saga Bar is the best evening. None of the restaurant dinners beat standing at the market.
We dropped Observatory Hill after five because we were tired, and the day was better for it. One more stop is how you end up enjoying none of them.
The entry is the obvious one. The less obvious one: if you are running, put nothing in the day after the race. You will not want it there.
Three weeks and a 10km long run gets you a finish and a time you will be explaining afterwards. It is survivable. It is not advisable.
Sydney reads flat in photographs of the harbour. It is not. The elevation was the part I had least planned for, mostly because I had planned for nothing.