Hike in Hong Kong!

Making history on New Year’s Day with a Lantau Bypass Operation

Photos here.

Some wise guy (definitely not me) once said: “Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are”. This quote should work the other way around as well, i.e. “Tell me who YOU are and I will tell you who your friends are”. Well, I am CRAAAAAAAAAZY. So, you know what my friends are like. There’s this one guy who is especially crazy; in the interest of respecting his privacy, I can’t tell you his name but I’ll give you only one clue: his name starts with “M”, ends with “N” and there’s a “artij” in between. And, what is so crazy about him? I’ll tell you.

It all started with an easy run I wanted to do to celebrate New Year’s Day. I asked my crazy friends if they were interested in running as well. “Mate, join the Quintuple run“, came the response from Martijn, who was referring to a run he was organizing. I signed up.

I met my crazy #2 friend, Vic, in McDonalds at Tung Chung today morning. We had an interesting conversation.

Me: So, what exactly are we doing today? Going up to Lantau Peak?
Vic: Yes, going up to Lantau Peak.

and then he dropped the bombshell.

Vic: 5 times

Continue to read about the madness…

Totally INSANE 70km Wilson Trail training

Who does a 70km run just for the sake of training?? And, that’s a 70km TRAIL RUN, mind you! The answer: several of my totally insane friends. And fortunately/unfortunately, I am part of that club too!

I have roughly done about two dozen races so far. And, I have only had 2 DNFs (Did Not Finish) to date. Both these DNFs were on the trail I HATE THE MOST. The 78km Wilson Trail! Again, fortunately/unfortunately, our training run yesterday was the whole Wilson trail – my arch nemesis. Every time I have attempted it, usually something or the other goes wrong. Yesterday, I was determined to teach the trail a lesson and complete it in style.

21 runners showed up at about 7.30am in Park View to attempt various stages of the Wilson Trail. Almost all (except for five of us -Martijn, Olivia, Vic, Vivien and I) wanted to take an early exit at some point or the other.

The group – photo courtesy – Vic

Continue reading about the Wilson experience

Kickin’ ass on Hong Kong Trail (while getting cooked..)

Today’s Hong Kong Trail Runners (HKTR) Bastille day celebration attracted 32 partygoers. And the definition of this “party” is slightly different to the one we are accustomed to. This party didn’t quite feature drinks or food; instead, it featured a 25km/50km run under boiling hot weather! And, btw, don’t ask me what Bastille day is. All I know is that it’s some French holiday which invariably means another opportunity to run in the trails of Hong Kong.

A formidable bunch! – photo by Romain Riche

I gave myself a target of 5 hours and 30 minutes to do the 50km run. I started off strong and took full advantage of the rain in the beginning by increasing my pace wherever I could. I reached the halfway point (Park View) in 2 hours and 21 minutes.

Continue reading about the Bastille Day party

Dear Mr. Wilson,

How you doin’? Oh wait…you have some sort of a bruise on your rear end? Ah.. don’t worry too much about that. That’s just me kicking a good part of your ass in retribution of all the times you have kicked mine. In 2009, you had me on Devil’s Peak. Less than 20km into the run, I was toast. You sapped me of all my energy leaving me feeling helpless. In 2010, you had the event canceled in a cowardice manner by faking the presence of a typhoon. In 2011, you generously gave me an ankle twist while climbing up no-name hill. All those wounds have not healed and today, for a change, I thoroughly enjoyed kicking more than half of your rear end. And come October, I’d wear “ass” armour if I were you because we intend giving you a thorough kicking this year.

You must have observed that about 20 of us started off in Tai Tam, all ready to give you a whacking. Notice in the picture below that Pig is naturally sitting on a pig and so is Olivia. Martin is looking all gung ho and ready to kick your ass.

Pig on pig, the rest by pig

But, as always, you had the unfair advantage of having the weather on your side, you made sure that the “hot weather warning” was in force. It was 33+ degrees outside and the heat was unbearable.

Continue reading about me kicking most of Wilson’s ass