Hike in Hong Kong!

Clinching a Greenpower victory by 12 seconds

It was Hong Kong Trail Runners’ first ever sponsored event. Lafuma was the sponsor and some simply awesome French-designed backpacks were at stake. (Well, the other “usual” things were at stake too, like sense of glory and achievement, etc, etc but the backpacks, I tell ya, were alone worth that 50km run!) But, in order to truly earn them, the objectives were twofold:

1) To break the current prevailing record of 4 hours and 45 minutes on the 50km Hong Kong trail
2) To win the Corporate Category under the Lafuma HKTR name

Vic, Vivien and I were going to represent HKTR as runners and we had at least a total of 15 people supporting the 3 of us! That’s 5 supporters per runner. We even had a motorbike crew which was available “on demand”. That’s not 1, not 2 but 3 BMW motorbikes supporting us — Hannes, Olivier and Romain. We neither depended on the organizer’s food stops not did we stop anywhere during the race. It was like a military operation planned by Generals Romain and Martijn. The army of 15 included Martijn, Michael, Jonathan, Gilles who were our pacers/mules (more about that later), then we had Hannes, Phoebe, Olivier who were our “mobile” support team and finally, we had Alice, Sunny, Janice, Maria, Philip, Billy and Nick who formed our “fixed” support team. Now, if this isn’t being pampered, I don’t know what is! The effort that went into coordinating the fixed/mobile and pacer teams was just mindboggling. Excel spreadsheets, whatsapp chat-rooms, briefing meetings, etc, etc. All done by Romain and Martijn to whom we owe a lot of gratitude. The three of us, Vic, Vivien and I, had the easiest job — to just run!

Speeches and races
We got to the start by 7.40am and found Romain and Phoebe already waiting for us! Romain began helping us from the get-go. Phoebe was testing her photography skills by using her new Canon camera on me. (She should have picked a better looking target). About 20 minutes before the start of the race, the three of us, Vic, Vivien and I, hit the toilets for that mandatory pre-race pee and gathered at the starting point by 8.20am. Then we had to bear listening to a long and boring speech by some special guest. I thought to myself that they should have been playing some live rock music instead. I told Vic to take it easy in the beginning and he repeated the same advice to me. Then I relayed that onto Vivien. We are all in agreement. Finally and thankfully, that boring speech was done and we were awoken by the countdown, 10, 9 .. 3, 2, 1 and off we went at 8.30am. Within a blink of an eye, Vic zoomed off and put us in the #1 position in our category by 8.31am. I reminded him of our “take it easy policy” and reigned him in.

Continue reading about the sponsored Greenpower race up ahead

Whose treasure it is anyway?

Full photos here.

As broadcast on all major television networks worldwide, close to 21 runners flirted with danger to unearth the world’s MOST valuable treasure buried deep in the outskirts of Sai Kung in Hong Kong.

There was intense speculation as to the exact nature of this treasure. Jenny surmised that it might be a new & cool trail running tee shirt from Mars. Linda figured it would be a plane ticket to Nepal (?!) I also thought I heard “cash vouchers”. “Mars bar” was another guess. The answers were all very varied but totally wrong!

The mission of the participating 9 teams was crystal clear – to find 4 hidden pieces of interplanetary treasure using nothing other than a map and some clever navigation techniques. Upon finding all four treasures, the teams were eligible to find THE ULTIMATE treasure buried in a top-secret location. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Too hot to not cheat
Ok, I have to admit – the course was rather daunting! Although it was only about 15kms long, the 31 degrees temperature and the totally exposed trails made treasure finding matters rather scorching hot! Most teams would have just given up under the circumstances. But, not the ones that participated today. They instead resorted to cheating. Or “team collaboration” as they called it. Each treasure point came with a secret number that needed to be added up in order to reveal the location of the final treasure point. So, instead of visiting each of the four treasure points, teams pretty much exchanged secret numbers and made their way to the final treasure point.

A scorching hot but strikingly beautiful Sai Kung

Treasure point #1 – just a small diversion on the way to Sharp Peak

Sharp Peak – Treasure point #2

Views from my guesthouse – the summit of Sharp Peak

The final treasure point – Tong Wan

Continue reading about the treasure finding experience