TransLantau 50

Another weekend, another race. I wasn't feeling too hopeful about this one with it being the 4th weekend of racing on the bounce. I had heavy legs all week so, as predicted in a previous post, I wasn't expecting great things.

Where we should have been going

The intended profile

After finding it even harder than usual to get my carcass out of bed I somehow still managed to to catch the 07.10 ferry to Mui Wo. This left a bit too much faffing about time before the start. I don't have much patience for the strutting about about which seems to go on before the start every race. I mostly find myself sitting around watching the proceedings with bemusement. I much prefer the 'turn up and start running' approach. While I'm moaning, I also really don't understand this whole thing with back of the pack runners insisting on starting in the front row of every race. I suspect its a Hong Kong phenomenon but either way its a bit bizarre. Is the photo of yourself on the front row really that important?

Exhibit A (Photo: Michael Ma)

This years race started with only one length of the beach which was barely enough to fill my shoes with sand. I think Clement, the organiser, must be going soft. Shortly there after came the first proof that he hadn't, with  the course heading straight uphill after it left the village. I started the Lantau 100 last year (DNFing at Tai O) which took the same route this years 50 up until Pak Kung Au so I knew roughly what was coming when, even if I hadn't found the time to do a recce this year. As would be come evident, I hadn't even studied the course map too carefully....which is unusual for me.
 

Filling the shoes with sand in the first 50m

Up the first hill things settled down reasonably quickly with two guys off the front, and one guy inbetween them and our little group with me leading Andrew Dawson, Richard Scotford and some other guy whom I don't know. It stayed like this for the first 10k or so with the pace pretty manageable. I think at one point the first woman tagged onto the back of us ( Ruth, a kiwi North Face athlete living in Taiwan who I heard had some really strong results in the last year including 4th overall at the Lantau KOTH in January). I say 'think' as I didn't look around at any point to see who was there, I just kept my own pace at the front of this little group and did my own thing. Coming into CP2 I had put a small gap on Andrew and Richard behind and caught up with the guy in 3rd who introduced himself as Timo. I had a vague idea who he was because I had read about this German guy living in Japan who had some incredible results to his name including 2nd at the Leadville 100 and 2nd at the HURT 100. 
 

Trying not ot over cook it on the first few hills

Straight after CP2 the trail kicks up for the biggest climb of the day, a slog up Sunset Peak from sea level, about 850m of climb in all. Timo waved me by claiming he wasn't a strong climber, something I find hard to believe looking at him. I obliged and started cranking my way up the hill with a combination of hands on knees hiking and low gear running. Soon enough I'd put a decent gap on him and could see the guy in 2nd high above me. I could still hear the guys behind me, mainly because Andrew is the king of running banter and somehow manages to race really well while carrying on a never ending conversation. I was reeling in the guy in second and feeling pretty strong at this point. The came the unexpected crux of the day. 

Halfway up this trail the marking pointed clearly off to the right. Now, I thought there was something fishy about this at the time as I was pretty sure that while the 100k course took off up the very rough KOTH trail, the 50k stuck to the much easier route straight up Sunset Peak as it had the previous year. But of course I hadn't checked the course recently so I couldn't remember for certain. But it was very clearly marked off in just one direction. Hmm. I stopped to ponder it for a second, then ran up the 50k route 20m or so to see if there were any visible markings ahead. Nothing. I came back down to the suspect junction and looked up the marked hill to see the 2nd place guy in red topping the first hill. I set off up the hill 50m or so and still wasn't convinced so came back down to the junction again to check if the sign said explicitly translantau 100 or translantau 50. Nope. At this point I was getting annoyed to have wasted effort on the hill up here only to be caught dithering so I took off up the hill in pursuit with Andrew, Timo and I think Ruth now not far behind me. I didn't look back but I could hear them again. This next section is a really rough bushwack over a hill, down an insanely steep loose section and along a ridge before descending down a wild 'path', over the river and out onto Wong Lung Hang Rd. All of this part, ironically, was impeccably marked. Presumably because the 100k runners had to do it at night. 

Then came the (again well marked) junction pointing to the beast of a climb up Sunset via the Wong Lung Hang Trail. This goes up some of the worst stairs in Hong Kong...all 3000 or so of them. Its used for the Lantau 2 peaks race so I know it well. It's absolutely hideously steep in places. I was still going well and half way up I caught the second place guy who turned out to be an American guy living in China and doing his first trail race. An impressive debut...god knows what he made of it though. He was concerned we were lost but I told him there was only one way up here and to keep going....though there was a suspicious lack of markings by this point. We kept going to the junction at the top which turns towards the summit only to find a train of other runners already there. Huh? Either we went wrong or they did. God....but we followed the markings! Total confusion but I didn't stop to ponder it and started to put some day light into the guy on the decent off Sunset to Pak Kung Au. I couldn't get any sense out of the people at CP3 as to what was going on so I refilled and took off already with an inkling that we had taken the 100k detour.

By now not a happy camper (Photo: Michael Ma)

By now I was properly pissed off but I quickly started to pass a string of the 100k guys including Peter Lee and several other randoms, possibly 50k runners on the contour trail. I was still going OK until I crossed the road at Nam Sham out to the first climbs on Chi Ma Wan section when I started to feel it a bit. None the less, I decided to carry on and see what happened at the finish line. You never know who is ahead or who is behind or what issues others are having. Chi Ma Wan has 2 or 3 big climbs, great trails and some spectacular views but it seems never ending. I tried my best to keep it going and not let the wheels come off but I'd long since lost enthusiasm. On the contour trail I caught and passed Richard who had been with us during the first 15k or so who said that he had tried to shout us back from the detour. Hey Ho. I then caught Anthony Davies and Claire Price (who were running as a team) just as they were leaving the last check point. I allowed myself my traditional last check point treat of some watered down coke and carried on passing them shortly after with a bit of chat and a grumble or two. It turned out that they were in 3rd and 4th at the time, though I didnt know that until afterwards. I struggled a bit up the last few climbs with my hamstrings becoming twingey and was getting increasingly grumpy about the very sparing use of course marking. I was seriously wondering if they had a shortage of ribbon for this race as you could go for several kilometres at a time without seeing any sign of marking. Blind faith was definitely required.
 

Great views from the contour trail back to Nam Sham

I managed to keep it together and kept up a moderate pace along the final tarmac section through Mui Wo back to the start/finish on the beach, crossing the line rather grumpily in 6hrs 24mins. I was bemused to hear this was good enough for 3rd place overall despite the detour but even with this news I wasn't in the finest humour and I'm afraid I wasn't very receptive to the organisers excited congratulations or attempts at prize giving hoopla. 

In hindsight third, given all that happened, was a strong run but it could have been better and should have been a much more satisfying day out. It transpires that the sweepers for the 100k race were supposed to remove all visible 100k markers at and around the turn off before the 50k race started but failed to do so, causing all the confusion and people going off course. Normally I'd say its up to the runner to know the course but that's often difficult on longer races and when the markings are clear you would think it would be logical to follow them. While HK runners might be expected to have some local knowledge, its also an international event and there were several runners who had flown in from Australia, Japan, China and Taiwan in the top 10 who are entitled to be mighty aggrieved that they couldn't even follow the course markings reliably. So, overall a bit of a disappointment and it was a real shame for a race on such a fine course to be ruined by an organisational balls up and some generally approximative course marking.

KOTH- Tai Po

Last weekend saw me racing at the final event in the King of the Hills mountain marathon series at Tai Po (36k/ 1940m+). After getting lost in the previous event a couple weeks ago at Sham Tseng ( awesome course if you manage to stay on it incidentally) I was keen to avoid any such fuck ups on this outing. Fortunately I've done the Tai Po course before so it is much more straight forward to navigate and helped by the fact that it was really well marked through out.

The day started with weather that would not have been out of place in the west of Scotland. The pissing rain was going to make for a slippery day out. The starts were staggered with the half marathon field starting at 09.00 and the full marathon at 09.15. This was to ease congestion with 500 people thundering towards the initial climb up Cloudy Hill. I think there were a few eyebrows raised among the front runners in the full marathon who were a little concerned about having to pass most of the half field. As it turned out it wasn't too bad.

Pat Sing Leng in the cloud

The race itself was pretty straight forward. I was trying not to kill myself going up Cloudy Hill and then over Pat Sing Leng. With Jeremy off the front as usual I just kept an eye on the effort while keeping just behind Will and Bob. My legs were still feeling the remnants of the previous weekends 50k and I was concentrating on not breaking my neck running down some of the sections of slippery steps. Will and I cruised along the ridge together admiring the spectacular views. On the right the clouds had acumulated on one side of the ridge completely covering Tolo Harbour yet there were unobstructed views off  towards the mainland on the left. It was worth hauling ourselves up there just for that.

After our allocated one cup of water (which Keith and his crew have to lug up there on their backs the day before so its much appreciated) we then slithered down the rough and slippery decent through the bush, swinging around the trees and laughing at the absurdity of it. I've long since accepted that I suck at this type of terrain and I'm pretty sure I lose several minutes every time a course takes us down one of these sections. Which in Hong Kong hill races is all too frequent. At the bottom of this section the course joins more runnable trails descending down to Brides Pool Road and the half way point. Here I put a small gap on Will before the check point, necked a few bottles of water and disappeared off into the woods again. 

On the way down to Brides Pool Photo: Wong Ho Fai

The remaining part of the course is disorienting and seems never ending. It makes for very fast running and has a deceptive amount of ups and downs over the various headland around the peninsula. There is some fine rough trail running but it really doesn't compare to the proper mountain running found on the first half. I was moving reasonably well and caught up with Bob Shorrock just as he was leaving CP4. He disappeared while I was still glugging water and refilling my bottle. I could see him in the distance but he was going like a train and I never quite manged to get on the back of him. I started to feel a few crampy twinges coming over the hills towards the last check point so took the foot off the gas a little here until it passed. The final section is again deceptively hilly with several stiff climbs back over towards Brides Pool. My legs were feeling happier again ( the human body is really capricious....I'm still learning to ignore its frequent complaints and remember that in most cases you can run through it). In any case I was able to run almost all of the last section which is quite a result in itself given the terrain. The final decent down to the finish was at a bit of a canter as by now I knew I wasn't going to be catching Bob today. I crossed the line strongly in 3rd, 3 minutes behind Bob and 5 minutes behind the winner, Salomon runner Jeremy Ritcey. Jeremy is one of the strongest hill runners in Hong Kong so to get within 5 minutes of him on this course is definitely and encouraging sign. 

In my own world  Photo: Wong Ho Fai

Slithering up to the final climb Photo: Wong Ho Fai

One final note. I'd never spoken to Bob before but chatting with him afterwards on the bus back to Tai Po it turns out that he is a bit of a legend. He is 53 years old, runs 90mile weeks and is getting faster each week. It transpires that he was a serious cross country runner when he was younger winning several England XC vests, has a 2.30.00 (note the zero zero) marathon and god knows how many 2.30 somethings and this year is getting back into proper training having recently lost 8kgs. He says he's about to 'start' training for the Mt Blanc marathon in June. Heaven help us next year.

HK50- Sai Kung

The other weekend saw the HK50-Sai Kung and it promised to be the most competitive of the three event series. Even after my rather soft second place in the HK Island race I didnt really hold out much hope of a decent placing this time in such a competitive field. Several international runners were flown in from as far away as the UK, US, Italy and Australia with others joining from China and the Philipines to compete alongside a strong line up of HK talent. I think some of them were invited by a combination of the organisers (Action Asia Events) and the ISF (International Skyrunning Federation)....not sure exactly how that is viable but anything that brings a high caliber of international runners to mix it up at HK events can only be a good thing.
 

50km Profile

The course (50k/2400m+) is an quite an enjoyable loop around the Sai Kung penninsula with some pretty technical ups and downs. While there are the usual stairs and paved concrete 'trails' and a few to many kms of road thrown in there, these are more than made up for by the rough hands on knees slog over Sharp Peak, some great technical trails and some spectacular views over the beaches. Fortunately the weather was also kind and race day saw perfect conditions with overcast skies and reasonable temperature/humidity by HK standards.

The first climb of the day

My race went pretty well. I started out pretty conservatively over the first hill then felt surprisingly good grunting over Sharp Peak and then racing down towards the beaches. I managed to get completely lost coming down off of the summit here last year but fortunately no such drama this year as everything was super clearly marked throughout. There are quite a few stiff climbs coming off the beaches and steep decents down onto the next which I wasn't enjoying too much but I managed to keep it going and pass a few people including some guy from Taiwan. At this point I was running close to SK who i have found myself along side a few times this year and we manged to get up and over the worst of the climbs and down onto the dam mostly together. 

Trying not to get sand in my shoes

Then the first to two longish road sections started.These the toughest parts of the day for me. I managed to keep pushing through them but they are just so dull, despite the views, that its easy to nod off and drop the ball. There was a brief trail section in between these two and I left SK behind on the climb back up to the road and CP3. Once back on the fast contour trail after another chunk of tarmac I was much happier and was able to push on a bit to CP4. Another brief section of road led to the final sting in the tail with a final big climb before the decent to the finish. I was feeling good by this point and was decending well so just kept up the pace as much as possible while trying not to over cook it. 

Running down steps this time

I was pretty religious about eating for once, taking on a clif gel every 45mins whether I felt like it or not, and it seemed to keep me going. I'd also been watching my electrolytes and trying to drink more than I usually bother to do. The only disadvantage of racing up to 50k with just a Simple Hydration bottle is that its tiny (385ml) so I need to be careful to drink enough and load up at checkpoints. 

Another hands on knees slog

By 40k I finally accepted that I wasn't going to blow up spectacularly and was able to keep pushing on. Slogging up the penultimate climb I caught sight of Will Davies (who had won the previous two races in the series) some way above me just as he disappeared over the top. I kept at it with hands on knees. I didnt see him down the other side but I charged down regardless and then hauled myself up the next climb. Nearing the top of this climb I realised that I now wasn't far behind him at all. I eventally caught him just before the final 5km decent much to each of our amusement. I ran 35k of the HK Island race alongside Will (before he dropped me on the bushwhack off Mt Parker) and then did the Trailwalker 100k with him in November as a late stand in on the 2XU team so we know each other a bit (Will is sponsored by Salomon so I never did find out how the Trailwalker team thing worked). Anyway after a bit of banter I brushed by and took the breaks off on the rough final decent leaving him behind. I kept the pace up to the finish to cross the line in 5th in 5.31 and change. 

The real finish ( I was asked to repeat it for the cameras...no really)

Ahead of me Rudy Gilman, an American with some crazy talent living in Kunming, China ran away with it in 4.51 followed by Stone Tsang 15 minutes behind then, Brendan Davies and Wong Ho Chung. Stone is probably HK's strongest mountain runnner and was top 20 in last years UTMB and both he and Chung run for the North Face/Champion System team while Brendan Davies is an Inov8 International athelete from Australia with a formidable running CV. I was quite pleased and more than a little surprised to win a few beer tokens and creep into the top 5 alongside this company. Chung mentioned that I was really close to him at the finish but I only found out later in the evening when I saw the published results that I was only 60 something seconds behind in the end. Not that I ever caught sight of him.

A somewhat reluctant raising of the chromed plastic

2014 Plans

I am in the middle of a busy few weeks of racing and with last weekends KOTH Sham Tseng and yesterdays MSIG SK50 out of the way I still have two weekends of racing to go before I allow myself a bit of a break and start looking forward to summer plans.

First up is next weekends final 2013-2014 King of the Hills (KOTH) series race at Tai Po. Its a slightly schizophrenic 36k course with the first half steep and technical going straight up Cloudy Hill and then up and along Pat Sing Leng on some great sections of trail. The second half of it is a bit of a drag in comparison with fast running on a seemingly never ending tour of the Lai Chi Wo penninsula.

The following weekend I'll be at the TransLantau 50k. Last year I DNFed the Lantau 100 at Tai O (around 61km) after having a decent first 50 then royally screwing up my fluid intake and practically cooking myself in the sun. After that the idea of trudging up Lantau peak in the dark definitely lost what little appeal it originally had so I threw in the towel and jumped on a bus back to Miu Wo. This year I signed up for the 50k race thinking that after OTW, TNF 100, HK100 and  SK50 doing another 100k race might be pushing my luck. Naturally, I was toying with the idea of changing to the 100k but was eventually put off when I discovered that it starts at midnight this year. While running at night can be fun, making use of that wonderful thing called daylight seems eminently preferable to me, even if its understandable why it makes sense from the organisers to do start a night. Anyway, its not an easy 50k and given its the 4th race in as many weekends I'm not expecting great things from what is left of my legs.

After March the focus changes from racing to just running for a while. My first objective is a trip back to Taiwan to climb Yushan Peak (3950m), Taiwan's highest mountain. Last year I ran up to 3300m or so on the main trail nearly to Paiyun from Takaka in terrible weather as a bit of a test run. This time the plan is to do it the hard way from Dongpu hotspring either going up and over or up and back. Much planning is still required and we'll have to see what nonsense the permit people throw up. I thought the rumours were a joke but I actually did have to supply a photo of myself on top of 'a high mountain' when I applied for the permit last year. Unreal.

The next, and arguably the most exciting plan for the summer is an attempt at the legendary Ramsay Round in Scotland. It is the lesser known Scottish equivalent to the Bob Graham Round, though arguably harder. 56 Miles and 8600m+ of unbelievably rough and exposed mountain terrain over the highest peaks in the UK. It was conceived as an extension to the all together more logical Tranter Round with the aim of linking 24 Munros (now 23) to be completed in a loop within 24 hours. Yes, its technically hill running of the Scottish variety, no, there aren't many paths and yes, I am a bit soft for it but heck, it has got to be done a some point.

Ramsay Round, Glen Nevis, Scotland- 23 Munros in 56 Miles/ 8700m+

This said, I still maintain that the Tranter Round makes much more sense as it avoids the somewhat forced extension around Loch Treig but its definitely the soft(er) option. Much debate in the Boyd family about this one. More thoughts to come.

Tranter Round

So far the only concrete thing on the cards this summer racing wise is the CCC (Courmayer-Champex-Chamonix) around Mt Blanc at the end of August. At 100k it makes more sense for me this year than its big sister the UTMB. The plan is to make a bit of an effort to prepare for it and get round it with a decent time. In this respect I can take last years disastrous Lavaredo Ultra Trail as the perfect lesson of how not to do it. If all goes well I'll maybe look to do the main event next year. I say 'maybe' as I'm a bit skeptical about the whole circus surrounding the UTMB/CCC not to mention the 168km distance combined with crazy elevation.

CCC Route