My first HK trail race was on the 6th of December 2014, the Action Asia Lantau 50. Armed with two 50km finishes back home (Action Asia Singapore 50 and The North Face Singapore 50), and trekking/training runs along Wilson and HK trails in previous years, I was fairly confident of finishing the race. My mind was all about the roasted goose I was going to eat after the race.
Waking up early and getting to the start line was an achievement in itself. I stayed in Mongkok and the race was in Lantau (an island away). Really thankful to the race organisers Action Asia Events for arranging buses from Prince Edward (10min walk from Mongkok) to the start line. The cold and weather.....brrrr.....so cold and comfy in bed that you must be crazy to head outside. It helps that some HK cafés are open 24hrs, thus there's hot porridge and coffee waiting for you. That was the main motivation for getting out of bed!
Lesson: If you've no time for breakfast, get some bread/snacks to be eaten on the bus.
The bus ride took about 40mins and we were at the start line. It was still dark and chilly, almost everyone was in a jacket. The race started and we were still in jackets, but before 3km I was getting uncomfortably hot and decided to remove it.
Lesson: Wear your jacket over your running pack so you can remove it easily.
If you encounter stairs early in the race, chances are they will be congested. It takes a lot of energy to overtake someone in front, only to be 1m ahead of where you were previously.
Lesson: Exercise patience and stay in line, conserve energy.
Reached the first checkpoint after 10km and feeling great and energetic! There were bananas and bread with peanut butter! I was busy spreading the peanut butter and stuffing myself, didn't realise how much time I've taken at the checkpoint.
Lesson: Be conscious of the time spent at aid stations, time flies when you're having fun.
The first 25km was completed in 4.5hrs. That's 7.5hrs left for the 2nd half. Sounds totally achievable.
Lesson: An ultra only starts after the halfway point; anything before is just a warm up to tire you.
The motivation after 25km was to meet Esther who was waiting at the next checkpoint. And she had a bottle of coke with her, making it even sweeter!
Things started going downhill after 35km. Not literally though, because in reality I was going uphill. We started to climb the famed Wisdom Path up to Lantau Peak. It was up, and up, and up. Some steps (boulders) were really high up to my waist. It was impossible to run; I wished I had 2 trekking poles instead of 1 to climb.
Reaching the top of Lantau Peak was exhilarating, but there was no time to stop for long and it was too cold and windy.
After a quick picture we went down the hill. If climbing up was hard, climbing down was painful. The steps were equally huge, if not bigger, making the steps slow and deliberate. Wind was strong and cold, we had to stop halfway to put on our jackets. After a while it was just survival mode to get down the hill, not thinking of the race anymore.
When we finally got down to the checkpoint below, I was told that I had missed the cut-off time by 20mins and had to DNF. So sad, that was the ending of my first HK race. 42km of gruelling hills and stairs over 9hrs 40mins. Felt disappointed, but felt more determined to be back stronger next year to challenge again. There's an old habit in me that makes me more determined to overcome a challenge every time I fail, even if it takes 2,3 or 10 attempts. This happened for windsurfing (I really sucked at it in the beginning), triathlon (my first race was so painful though I finished) and many others, it will happen for trail running as well. Alex 加油⛽️!
I still had my roasted goose! In fact I had a roasted platter with goose, duck, char siew, pork and chicken. Omg so good! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment