Moontrekker

Moontrekker is a charity endurance competition race at night to complete against the minds, hearts, and legs of Hong Kong adventurers through the sleepy Po Lam Zen Monastery in Tai Tong Tsai and leads hikers up Hong Kong second highest peak on Lantau (934m)

Somehow I lost time at home and had only 15 minutes to catch the ferry at 7:30. When I called my friend he said the ferry was already undocking. OMG! Luckily, there was a special ferry 5 minutes later to bring most of the runners to Mui Wo.

Once I arrived, we waited for about an hour for the start of the race 9:20pm. Usually, I like to be close to the front, but for fun.. I thought I would try the back and video the crowd before it became pitch dark.

Unfortunately, my Garmin watch acted up in the race around 3km and I lost a 5km of history. Adding insult to injury, my light became dim 30 minutes into the race which gave me a very very low lumin (I'd say around 5-10). I tripped over a rock, did a barrel roll and hit my head on a small rock giving me a lump on right parietal ridge area. I think the light issue really became a significant crutch on my trail run. Well, that's part of the race! Unexpectedly, I came too close to the edge and actually fell again and my camelpack hose came off. Remind you my stinking light was on 'dim' mode and the spout became very difficult to find in the overgrown bush. I would say I easily spent 3-5 minutes searching for it. Ok, Chi Ma Wan pensisular was very friendly to this trailrunner that night.

Once out of the peninsular, the hike began. It was a relief to see the first checkpoint and refill water. I forgot to mention that the missing spout cause around 200ml of lost water :(. I had an extra battery, so I popped it in.. giving me another 30 minutes of bright light.

Once I arrived at Tung Chung Road (checkpoint 4), I felt pretty good and there was substainial incline for the next 5km. I was able to pass around a half dozen runners going up to Lantau Peak. I really felt I was cruising up the steep 400 incline at a decent rate. It took me around 23 minutes whereas when I first did Lantau back in April, it took me more than twice as long: 43 minutes. Once I arrived at the top, I somehow went down the wrong way and found myself slidding down from one ledge to another. Luckily, I criss-crossed to the left and was able to get back on the footpath.

While decending, the wind was quite strong and the rocks quite slippery. Given the fact that I had around 3km left to go, I took it real easy and slow. It took longer to go down the Lantau Peak than it did to go up.

My time was 6:21, Here is a video of the run from the starting point into Chi Ma Wan peninsular:

Lantau2Peaks 21.1km

To end my 4th running event with ActionAsiaEvents for 2010, this run was super hard on the quadriceps. Todays race was very slippery and hilly with a cool blustery wind with low visibility at the top of Lantau and Sunset Peak in Hong Kong. I saw, including myself, people having a few slips. We came in 5th out of 12 team-of-4


Note to self: Rock + Knee = MAJOR HURT. This race was a way for our team to prepare for the Oxfam Trailwalker 100km death march in November. We finished the race as 'planned' before 4:00. Actually 3:57. I hope that we will be more strong on race day. A big thanks to the race coordinator for another successful event.





Ok, Here is a really 'quick-edit' compilation video of the race:

Morning cycling training on north Lantau

Laos 100k 3-days

On September 26th, 2010, I completed my 2nd 100km staged race. This time it was in Laos. Mostly running down dirt roads from one local village to another around 80km outside the city of Luang Prabang. In other news, unknown to most everyone, Mick Jagger was in the area.. meditating...




The night before the race, we travelled 2-3 hours by bus on a rocky bumpy-dirty roads.


I think we finally arrived around 1AM in the morning. We all quickly headed to bed for a 5:30AM wake up call. Each night we would end up in a new village and sleep. The first night had electricity, the second night had none, and the last night also had electricity. The shower area was either from a small hose that had no pressure. Luckily, all the places had a squat toilet versus digging/squatting in the 'field'. I would say that in the conditions we had, it was overall pleasant.


Unlike Vietnam which was in July, the weather was less hot, humid, and rainy. During the night, we actually had to use a blanket because the temperature went down below 75 degrees. Overall, the terrain was long drawn out up hill compared to a quick up and down hilly. I'll go into details on that next...



Day 1 - 41 km

1	0:04:25
2	0:04:59
3	0:05:07
4	0:05:12
5	0:05:40
6	0:05:37
7	0:05:44
8	0:05:38
9	0:05:38
10	0:05:53		Very fast 10k, I did this actually intentionally since my walking speed is terrible. As I figured, all the fast individuals past me at 13k.. This is the start of when the altitude went straight to the roof.
11	0:07:15
12	0:06:05
13	0:06:48
14	0:13:39		The beginning of my second race - walking up a long long hill (20km)
15	0:12:42
16	0:10:12
17	0:12:08
18	0:12:52
19	0:11:02
20	0:12:45
21	0:08:42
22	0:07:53
23	0:10:00
24	0:09:54
25	0:11:34
26	0:11:06
27	0:09:45
28	0:09:42

29

0:07:52

30	0:13:28
31	0:12:20
32	0:09:45
33	0:09:22
34	0:06:06
35	0:08:57
36	0:08:13
37	0:08:21
38	0:12:02
39	0:12:48
40	0:10:31
41	0:08:32
42	0:02:32

Somewhere during the race after 15km, my arch started to hurt really badly. Silly me.. I kept on walking. My mistake was to 'NOT' remove the theraputic insoles. I thought the insoles would be helpful, but it became a big thorn and eventually slowed my time (in my honest opinion). I will never use them again: P.O.S. Clincally speaking, I believe my feet are actually fine without them. I did have some leg spasms after 37km; I constantly drank salt pills which would calm down a few km later. I believe it is probably good to drink potassium and magnesium pill the night before which I failed to do.




After running day 1, the village we stayed is really 'outback'. I believe I had Anterior Talofibular Ligament Sprain. I had a few repeatedly sprains on MacLehose and it is possible that I didn't really recover. Whatever the technical term was or how it happened; my ankles were very damaged, so I didn't care as I just had one thing on my mind - sleep! Of course I took a shower, we'll communal shower with very little water pressure. One constant morning event is the 5 o'clock wakeup call by some god damn rooster.

Day 2 - 47 km



In the morning, we travel 40km by road and headed over a ridge. The cloud hugging view with its crisp fresh air was fantastic before the sun melted them away. Once we arrived, we did a little sightseeing which started at the Pha Tok Caves. These are enormous multi-levelled caves set in
limestone cliffs, where villagers hid out during the Second Indochina War. There is a rickety ladder going in which everyone was stopped by a chain and gate preventing us to access the caves before the race. Well, we did get to see a millipede.




I won't bore you with the splits.. The damage of the insoles and my ankle impingment problems were done. I finally decided to get rid of the soles at 18km. One great aspect of running in Lao is the when the school children lined up and gave synchronous clapping as we past by. I even I was passed by 3 other runners. Luckily, there was big downhill on the other side of the ridge. It's not the fact that I am good at going downhill, but more uphill (when it is steep). This is near Phia San, a village which was remote and very quiet people. I heard more roosters than I heard people. Kids would just stand and stare. Well, going up the hill, I was able to pass 2 of the runners and pass another runner after 38km. It felt good and I did less walking...




Day 3 - 7+km





My ankles by now have inflamed especially my left foot. I could hardly even walk.. but, I wouldn't let the talus area of my foot prevent me from finishing. Today was water and rice patty field run day. It was really trail running here. This was very technical and one slip would put you right into harms way of some blood leaching leaches. Some of the runners had blood running down their calves from them grabbing onto their leg and having a blood fest. Fortunately, I was so slow that I didn't fall.. well, wait. I did fall and it happened to be in a river. I lost my footing when crossing a 3 log bridge and bam! I fell sideways and back into the river. Luckily, it was deep enough not to hurt except my camera :(. Thanks Joseph Osha~ You saved my life by helping me out of the trenches. It was good fun~~ really.

My final thoughts as 'pretraining for the Maclehose Trailwalker':
1. Tape up your feet, it did wonders and I only had a very small blister which didn't really form.
2. Bring plenty of salt and magnesium/potassium and start consuming them the day before the race.
3. Don't stop your activities after a race like this. Keep moving~

Total Time: 14:30:47

Maclehose Oxfam Trailwalker Training Stage 1-2 (Early and Rainy)

I went out on a training run very early. I would say I woke up at 3AM. Here is the highlights of my run. I was overall happy with the run since I didn't twist my ankle or fall down a stream

26th Thaiquain 10k

Hong Kong had a tropical depression on Friday which moved the thick smog out but cleared in blazzing, hot and humid weather for Sunday's hilly race. Thaiquain starting point is the same as Oxfam Trailwalker 100km which I will participate in November.

Morning Start:
Sai Kung is not the easiest to go. But it only required 2 transfer from mini-bus to the double decker bus. Another note about early starts - make sure you eat at home otherwise, it's egg salad sandwich from 7/11. The bus ride took 1.5 hours with about an hour to spare to collect my packet

From 26th Thaiquain 10k

I recently bought a few gadgets which I would like to share with my viewers before I begin:
1. Vibram Five Fingers KSO

From 26th Thaiquain 10k

This is the first race that I ran with VFFs. In training I've ran with them less than 6 times varying between 1km to 10km. It's hard to say if I would have had a better time. I notice a little heat building up and my forefoot feeling ready to start blistering. I wouldn't recommend running anything more than 10k in the hot, humid Hong Kong with them because the sweat runs down your legs and into the shoes making it quite wet; hence the start of a blister? Some people report very sore calves running in VFF. I don't seem to have that problem; however the following morning I feel a little sore all over.







2. Action Camera:


26thThaiquain10k "OntheRun" Pictures

3. Cyling jersey














I find that runners like to run in baggy outfits. I am not sure why this is the case especially in Hong Kong. I would think that this would create more rash. For myself, since I having began to cycle more; I am wearing cycling jersey. The zipper provides open access to the chest when it gets hot. The tight jersey is "aerodynamic" for the speedy downhills :) Also, for longer runs; there are pockets in the back to provide easy access to energy GU.

4. 2XU Compression short pants
















Now for the race route:


Race Split:
1 00:04:10 1.00 04:10 <--- I need to get to the front... too much congestion!
2 00:04:56 1.00 04:56 <--- What happened? Oh right - gravity and hill
3 00:04:30 1.00 04:30
4 00:04:26 1.00 04:26
5 00:04:38 1.00 04:38

6 00:04:31 1.00 04:31
7 00:04:42 1.00 04:42
8 00:04:42 1.00 04:42
9 00:04:45 1.00 04:45
10 00:04:10 1.00 04:10
11 00:00:34 0.13 04:16

A semi-decent beginning to the race season..

1 1 1 MB 2005 FELBABEL, Erich 0:37:11 0:37:06 0:18:47 0:18:25

2 2 1 MC 3039 NG Kam Tai 吳金帶 0:38:05 0:38:02 0:19:49 0:18:16
3 3 1 MD 4023 KAM Wing Keung 金永強 0:38:46 0:38:44 0:19:50 0:18:57
4 4 1 MA 1007 CHAN Hon Man Alfred 陳翰文 0:38:54 0:38:50 0:20:13 0:18:41
5 5 2 MB 2018 CHAN Ka Chun, Eric 陳家俊 0:38:59 0:38:57 0:20:12 0:18:47
...
67 66 14 MD 4037 Dwyfor EVANS 0:45:01 0:44:56 0:22:36 0:22:25

70 69 17 ME 5089 CHAN Chau 陳 就 0:45:12 0:44:58 0:23:07 0:22:05
68 67 5 MF 6054 CHEUNG Kwok Ming 張國明 0:45:03 0:44:59 0:23:03 0:22:01
69 68 16 ME 5091 LEE Chau Ning 利就寧 0:45:09 0:44:59 0:23:26 0:21:44
74 73 15 MC 3018 LEE Kin Wai 李健偉 0:45:26 0:45:05 0:22:58 0:22:29
71 70 13 MC 3042 WONG Pui Yuen 黃沛源 0:45:22 0:45:07 0:23:37 0:21:46
81 80 21 MB 2057 FONG Chun Wing 方俊穎 0:45:41 0:45:09 0:23:49 0:21:53
73 72 14 MC 3104 CHOY Kai Man Tenny 蔡啟文 0:45:25 0:45:14 0:23:22 0:22:04
78 77 18 ME 5084 CHUI Chi Lap 徐自立 0:45:36 0:45:15 0:23:20 0:22:16
72 71 6 MF 6163 POON Pak Sun 潘百新 0:45:24 0:45:21 0:22:47 0:22:37
79 78 16 MC 3075 LEUNG Tsz Kong 梁子江 0:45:36 0:45:22 0:23:13 0:22:23
76 75 7 MF 6052 CHAU Yun Tung 周潤桐 0:45:33 0:45:25 0:23:33 0:22:00
77 76 8 MF 6031 WONG Chi Kuen Johnson 黃志權 0:45:34 0:45:26 0:23:11 0:22:24
75 74 20 MB 2085 LEE Siu Hong 李紹康 0:45:32 0:45:27 0:23:16 0:22:17
83 82 16 MD 4009 CHAN Hon Man 陳漢文 0:45:44 0:45:31 0:23:19 0:22:25
80 79 19 ME 5048 TAM Ping Hung Simon 譚炳雄 0:45:39 0:45:34 0:23:04 0:22:35
82 81 15 MD 4063 LEE Ying Ho 李英豪 0:45:43 0:45:34 0:23:09 0:22:35
84 83 1 MG 7009 CHAN Kwai Tim 陳貴添 0:45:46 0:45:39 0:23:14 0:22:32
90 87 22 MB 2060 NGAN Chiu Wik 顏昭域 0:46:11 0:45:40 0:24:07 0:22:05
86 84 20 ME 5122 Victor YUEN 0:45:51 0:45:44 0:23:45 0:22:07
85 2 2 WC 331 CHEUNG Chui Fong Kitty 張翠芳 0:45:50 0:45:46 0:23:04 0:22:47
88 85 9 MF 6029 YIP Kei Fu 葉基虎 0:45:58 0:45:53 0:23:18 0:22:41
87 3 1 WD 440 CHONG Miu Ying May 咗 莊妙英 0:45:58 0:45:54 0:23:43 0:22:15
89 86 17 MC 3066 KUT Yip Ming 吉業明 0:46:05 0:45:57 0:23:13 0:22:53
93 90 19 MC 3052 Joel LABELLE 0:46:18 0:46:03 0:23:07 0:23:12
...
690 601 167 MF 6112 TANG Siu Hung 鄧肇雄 1:28:57 1:28:32 0:42:06 0:46:51

691 90 18 WE 510 LEUNG Oi Yee 梁靄儀 1:31:50 1:31:27 0:44:09 0:47:42




At the end of the race, there was RedBull. Here is a tip: Don't drink it without plenty after race hydration. Your pee will turn dark red for about 2-3 restroom stops.

HKTriA Sprint Triathlon 750/20/5

My First Sprint Triathlon... :)


I started the day really early by waking up at 4:00AM. This wasn't necessary I feel since my race wouldn't start for another 3:45 hours. Since it was my first triathlon, I took several days off without much biking or running. The last two weeks, I pounded the trails and ran up mileage on the bike. My goal was to be fresh and reduce the inflamation that I caused by twisting my left foot twice in a row. I took a cab at 5:15AM to arrive early to get my numbers placed.

The race basically was the same as the Aquathon I did previously the month before with an additional bike run. My swim was better but I seem to go off course a lot which took a lot of time out. One time I thought I was last, but then an official shouted at me stating that I was off course. I was heading for the starting bouy and not the third. Throughout the swim, I was fighting space and continuously hitting a breast stroke swimmer. I'm sure he hated me... Even the end, I went off course and had to swim to the right for about 20m to get on the pier steps. My time in the water stood at 28:43. Next time, I will look up every 6th stroke.
The transition for the swim2bike was very long. You had to run to your bike which seemed more than 100m. I used rubber bands for the shoes, but my right shoe hit the ground and came off before I mounted the bike. So, I had to retrace my steps with the bike and pick up my shoe and put it on.

The bike required 5 laps and the fast cyclists passed me twice. Although, I felt I trained sufficiently for my first triathlon, I obviously see that I can improve in all areas. My time on the bike were very inconsistent and I felt sluggish as well. I took a gel while in the transition and drank fluid right after the corner.

T1 - 1 min 57 seconds
2 00:02:37 1.00 22.8 - includes my mishap with wardrobe(shoe) malfunction

3 00:01:44 1.00 34.3
4 00:02:02 1.00 29.4
5 00:01:55 1.00 31.3
6 00:01:55 1.00 31.1
7 00:01:50 1.00 32.6
8 00:02:05 1.00 28.6
9 00:01:50 1.00 32.5
10 00:01:57 1.00 30.7
11 00:01:52 1.00 31.9
12 00:01:52 1.00 32.0
13 00:01:57 1.00 30.7
14 00:01:44 1.00 34.3
15 00:01:52 1.00 32.0
16 00:01:56 1.00 30.8
17 00:01:53 1.00 31.7
18 00:01:43 1.00 34.7
19 00:01:57 1.00 30.7
20 00:02:03 1.00 29.2
21 00:02:09 1.00 27.8

T2 - 2 min 25 seconds

Run - 5k, My time on the run is a bit weird and very inaccurate. I gathered both armbands, but this is my times:

Garmin
22 00:02:52 0.81 16.9

23 00:02:18 0.49 12.8
24 00:04:37 1.00 13.0
25 00:04:46 1.00 12.6
26 00:04:45 1.00 12.6
27 00:02:20 0.50 12.8

Polar
A23 - 3:52 - transition?
Manual Split - 2:13
A24 - 4:34
A25 - 4:47
A26 - 4:50
Stop - 3:33

I will work harder for the 1500m/40km/10km in October...