Category Archives: Races Hong Kong

2015 TNF100 Hong Kong – The end of the year race

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Seeing everybody making some New Year resolutions around January 1 I decided to set myself a bit of a challenge too – to do all four 100K races in Hong Kong in 2015. Well with new races popping up here and there they may now be more than four but I went for the original four – HK100, Translantau100, OTW and TNF100. It was not all smooth ride thanks to a silly injury but far from race fit I survived and completed both the early year races – HK100 and Translantau. A month long almost complete rest followed before I went full on into training for TDS. TDS was an amazing experience. But resuming training after that demanding race was not easy. The recovery took some time. But by the time of Trailwalker (after “practice” Moontrekker and LT70 races) I was feeling pretty good to go. Trailwalker went very well for me. Three out four were in the bag. The TNF however was always going to be the trickiest one.

I have never tried to attempt two 100km races within 3 weeks only. Also unlike the other three races I was not completely familiar with the TNF route. I knew most of it but not all. I never trained specially for this race. And of course – this race is a tough one…
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2015 Oxfam Trailwalker – The Awoosome Four

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I have lived in Hong Kong for more than 20 years but somehow I have never done this one. I acted as an obedient mule on two occasions but I have never done the Trailwalker myself. Also – you can’t do HK 100K grand slam without doing OTW. So I made the decision to enter the lottery. Plan B was to find a team in case I fail in the lottery. I was lucky – first time trying and I got the place.

The team assembly was pretty quick – Sean was on board from the very beginning, Martijn and Stuart joined us soon after the lottery . Interesting mix – one OTW veteran, two OTW newbies and one 100K virgin. It took about 2 mins to come up with the team name. We managed several training runs together covering the complete OTW route although we were not always able to train all four of us together.

OTW2015 Awoosome Four Start

OTW2015 Awoosome Four Start

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2015 LT70 – The last “short” race of my season

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This is a special race to me. Back in 2013 LT70 was my first venture into ultra distances. I struggled in the heat last year and I was as close to DNF is one possibly can get without actually pulling out. And this year I signed up again. For fun. This is a happy race. And testing myself over 70km three weeks ahead of OTW sounded like a good plan.

I approached this race as a training race. No special preparation, just a part of training for my upcoming four 100K races. I set myself no specific target. I definitely wanted to finish. Anything sub 13 hours would be fine, getting sub 12 hours would be excellent.

LT70 2015 Finish

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2015 Moontrekker – Back to racing

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Not knowing how long my recovery from TDS would take I played it safe. Same as last year I set the Moontrekker as my first race of Hong Kong running season. At one stage (during a struggle on a long training run about 3 weeks ahead of the race) I thought about skipping it as well. But at the end I decided to give it a go. My focus of this season are four 100km races in Hong Kong. Moontrekker is was to be one of my training races.

The weather was good, a bit cooler than a year ago. What was not too good was my position at the start. I totally forgot about the bottleneck at the playground exit. By the time I got out the gate the leaders of the pack were half way to China Bear probably.
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2015 Country Of Origin Run – The race that wasn’t (and my pre-TDS training self assessment)

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This was a cool concept. Find two team mates holding the same passport as yourself, form a team and have race against other teams on some fun Lantau trails.

Concept was cool but finding 2 team mates with same passport was mission close to impossible for me. But not wanting to miss out on all the fun I explored some other options. And one of the self proclaimed race directors announced that teams coming from other planets of our solar system will be given wild card entries (suggesting for example Uranus) and I was all for it.

Still I had to find team mates. I managed to convince a guy called Vince that he also is from Uranus. He in turn recruited lady called Rachel and Team Uranus was born.
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2015 Hard As Nayls – Family Edition

Races Hong Kong,

This was a short but very special race for me. Firstly our company was one of partners of the race – we supplied the race tees for the runners and volunteers. And I ran this race with my soon to be 9 years old son – as a team – in the family edition. My racing season was officially over after Translantau but I thought that 8km with my junior running buddy would be fun.

My son was taking this race seriously and obviously hoped we can finish good somewhere near the top of the order. I tried to keep his expectations down – after all there would surely be much older kids than him. My other concern was the weather. After our recce run I was sure that he can handle the course without too much trouble but late April heat and humidity could  be a factor…
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2015 Translantau100 – Well that was quite a trip

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A year ago I spent the night in Pak Mong and Ngong Ping check points helping with the Translantau timekeeping. It was a very interesting experience seeing the tired runners approaching the Ngong Ping CP in the early morning hours. Some fresh and eager to push on, some destroyed already with two thirds of the course still ahead. I guess it was then when the idea of signing up for this race was planted somewhere into my brain.

Translantau map and elevation profile - beast of a course

Translantau map and elevation profile – beast of a course

Then later in the year I signed up for the TDS (because CCC was not enough 🙂 ). And I thought that it might be good to end the winter season with a tough run – already as a part of preparation for the TDS. So I signed up with no goal other than to finish. I had no special race plan, I haven’t done any recce and I had no specific time target.

Then came new year and as I had a spot at both HK100 and Translantau100 I set myself the target to finish all four Hong Kong 100km races in 2015.
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2015 Valentine’s Day Race

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The idea to do this race as a daddy and son team was born a year ago during this race. We were helping at the Chi Ma Wan checkpoint and seeing all sorts of couples having fun day out on trails we decided to join the fun a year on. And so we signed up as Team Awoo Boys.

I was a bit a afraid that I will spoil the fun thanks to my pre-HK100 injury. But while still not in a shape for any serious training I was relatively OK to go for some training hikes before this race. We did a recce of the course one weekend, cool Mt. Parker hike and bushwhack the other and some mellow hike to Stanley on the final weekend before the race.

Awoo Boys Training for LBC Valentine's Day Race

Awoo Boys Training for LBC Valentine’s Day Race

I thought that we would mostly hike it and add a bit of jog here and there depending how we feel. Based on our 14-20km practice hikes we set ourselves a sub-3hours goal.

Junior however had other ideas. First it was not easy to convince him that starting right at the front ahead of the fast runners is not a smart idea. Then once the race was on I had hard time slowing him down on the initial climb and the descent that followed. I kept shouting “slow down, you are too fast” and “keep your power for the climbs” as well as some trail running safety instructions concerning stealthily overtaking people that are 3-4 times his body mass. His Eagerness obviously was not too happy that we allowed so many people to pass us while I was showing no interest in passing other.

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2015 HK 100 – Against all odds

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I was really looking forward to this one. And I really wanted the golden dude I missed out on last year by about half an hour. The preparations were going well.  I felt I am in good form. I believed I had a chance to get that golden dude. But then exactly a week before the race I went for a final training run, first in Hong Kong after almost 2 weeks of stubborn training in freezing snowy Europe. After about 10 great kilometers on the trail came brief lapse in concentration followed by stumble and tumble somewhere under Violet Hill.  Nothing spectacular, nothing unusual on uneven trails. Knowing I will fall I tried subconsciously to pick the best landing spot. I managed that pretty well with only minor scratches on the palms of my hands. But unfortunately I had a plastic UD bottle in my front bottle carrier. And that bottle had pretty hard lid screwed on. And that lid ended up between the hard ground and my left ribcage. And that hurt like hell. The impact was pretty strong as it totally disconnected the lid from the bottle. I picked myself up and went on. I had to as no matter which way I turned I had at least 4-5 km till some point with public transport. I somehow managed to continue for further 10km over Violet, Jardines and Siu Ma Shan all the way home. I announced my arrival with words “I am in pain”. I thought that’s it for me and HK100…

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2014 MSIG Lantau 50 – The brutal one

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Two years the 26km version of this Lantau race was my first proper trail race. This time last year I shocked myself and while doing my first 50km race I won my first trail running trophy. So me and this race we do have some history. And the history was to continue in 2014.

The 2014 edition however came with a tiny change – a brand new course. I was a bit disappointed as I liked the old route – the combo of three hills and the long speedy Chi Ma Wan loop. But old route or new route I was determined to go for it. Not without some recce runs though.

From the race map I guessed that part of the race would follow LT70 route. I only had 2 Saturdays to spare so I decided to recce the beginning and the end hoping that the middle part will not throw in any nasty surprise. After my 2 recce runs I knew that this would be one of the toughest races Hong Kong has to offer… My plan was simple – start easy to save the legs and the energy for the last 20km.

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