Hike in Hong Kong!

HKTR (Hong Kong Trash Removers) clean up Mac 2 and Sharp Peak

Hong Kong Trail Runners put on their Samaritan hats to become Hong Kong Trash Removers. The idea was to restore the beauty of Sharp Peak by getting rid of all the garbage on the peak. Prior to the hike, I received intelligence reports stating that a recent cleanup crew had already cleaned up Sharp Peak, so I only wanted about 10-15 Samaritans instead of the 25+ people who had volunteered. However, what we realized on this cleanup hike was that no amount of helping hands can ever be too much to clean up our trails! Maclehose 2 was one heck of a dump yard! Here, take a look:

Hong Kong Trail Runners preparing to become Hong Kong Trash Removers

Read more about Hong Kong Trash Busters’ achievements up ahead

The flu-bustin’ Mac 1,2,3 run

The appetite
Imagine a food lover fasting for a day. The day after the fast he walks in all hungry into a gourmet restaurant and sees all these delicious food items on the menu. The food now controls his mind and he instinctively ends up ordering way too much.

What does this have to do with today’s run? Well, after several weeks of averaging over 100km/week, I feel victim to the influenza virus last week. As a result, my mileage until this morning dropped to 11k for the week (I know, blasphemy). While nearly recovering from the flu, I felt extremely “hungry” for some serious trail running. On the menu, at least officially, was Mac 1, 2 and 3 (34kms) but for dessert, I was sure to savor Mac 4, 5 and perhaps Mac 6.

The happy troopers

Read on to discover the truths about running with a flu

The excitement of running Mac 1, 2 and 3 with my team woke me up at 0530. I was out the door by 6 and ran straight to my motorcycle. I removed the motorcycle cover and a white slip flew out of the back seat. I picked it up from the ground to inspect it. It read in bold “HONG KONG POLICE FORCE”. My jaw dropped and as I read further. “TRAFFIC OFFENCE” – it said. My “offence” was clear. “PARKED OTHER THAN IN AN AUTHORIZED PARKING ZONE”. The morning excitement turned to ANGER as I read the amount I was fined. 320 bucks! Just like that. My motorbike was parked less than 10cms away from the last rectangular motorbike parking spot. LESS THAN 10CMs AWAY!! And they fined me. Fined a harmless, defenseless guy like me. What about catching all the BAD guys in Hong Kong?? How about busting some drug cartel or solving some hard-to-solve murder case?? NO! Instead, “Asia’s finest” (that’s what the cops here are called) pick on some poor guy like me!! Why me?! WHYYYYYYYYYY?!

So, as furious as I was, I had to meet Romain and Jinwa on Kimberly Road. Romain was on his bike and the plan was to drive to Sai Kung together to begin the Mac 1, 2, 3 run. I met him at 0615 but I was largely preoccupied on the ride to Sai Kung with my parking ticket dilemma. I wasn’t sure what to do. Do I contest the ticket? Do I write a letter to the cops? Do I simply not pay it? In fact, I was thinking about several versions of my letter to the cop during the journey to Sai Kung.

Version 1: The “sympathy” invoker:
Dear cop,

Without my help, there’s no telling what could have happened. In light of the circumstances, I seriously hope you’ll reconsider the parking ticket you wrote me.

Version 2: The political blackmail:
Yo Cop,

PS. Time to go and bust real criminals instead of picking on average Joes like me who are struggling to make a living

Anyway… so, once we reached Sai Kung, I asked Romain about the consequences of not paying the fine. He said – “they will send a ‘reminder’ and that’s not free either”. Great. Talk about ripping off the small guy.

Now, back to the run. We started at 0733 but I was still quite pissed off because of the ticket. So, with Eminem’s “The Way I Am” blasting into my ears, I was on fire:

“But I’m glad cause they feed me the fuel that I need for the fire
To burn and it’s burning and I have returned”

Stats:
Mac 1 completed in: 52 mins 32 secs
Chilling and waiting for teammates: 8 mins 32 secs
Mac 2 to Sai Wan shop: 58 mins 3 secs
Chilling and waiting for teammates: 24 mins 25 secs
Sai Wan to Pak Tam Au: 1 hour 9 mins
Chilling and waiting for teammates: 25 mins 07 secs
Mac 3 completed in: 1 hour 45 mins

Total:
Time: 05:44:08
Distance: 34.13 km
Elevation Gain: 1,489 m
Calories: 2,271 C

Garmin.

GPX.

It was so, so, so hot on Mac 3 that I almost forgot about the ticket until I got home and …. paid it [I set up a 'Bill Payment' entry to pay exactly 1 day before the deadline! The cops ain't gonna keep my money any longer than absolutely necessary]. The motorbike is again parked 10cms away from yet another rectangular parking spot and as I was leaving I did see two cops patrolling on that street. If I see another ticket tomorrow, a version 3 of that letter will be out. So, could someone please introduce me to Long Hair?

Yesterday’s mission was to ride my motorbike to Plover Cove and do the Plover Cove reservoir trail + Pat Sin Leng. The mission was a success in the sense that I was able to ride to Plover Cove! (that drive from Tai Mei Tuk to Wu Kau Tang is majestic) The mission failed though because I lost power in less than 20 minutes into the run as it was hot as hell and I had stomach trouble (perhaps food poisoning or simply exhaustion). Eventually ended up doing some sort of loop and finished in Wu Kau Tang! (less than 10km!) The bike journey on the way back took 40 minutes only! I was originally going to rest today but then Sai Kung beckoned!

So, today’s mission was to ride to Pak Tam Chung and then do Mac 1,2 + Sharp Peak + Pak Tam Trail back to Pak Tam Chung. Reaching Sai Kung on the motorbike wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be and I reached in 1 hour (after several wrong turns).

The run was a success (almost 30km) but I had to skip Sharp Peak as the body was overheating!! Today was a scorcher! There was some wind but on many occasions, the wind actually worsened the situation as it was dry and sapping all the energy out of me.

Start time: 0922
Time take to complete Mac 1: 54 mins 26 secs (very, very slow as the heat was unbearable)
Mac 2 to Sai Wan shop: 1 hour 10 mins
Break in that Sai Wan shop for refueling: 10 mins 16 secs
Sai Wan shop to Pak Tam Au: 1 hour 15 minutes
Total time taken to complete Mac 2: 2 hours 35 mins (probably my slowest time in the past year)
Pak Tam Au to Pak Tam Chung via Pak Tam Trail: 30 mins 53 secs

Overall
Time: 04:02:15
Distance: 28.53 km
Elevation Gain: 995 m

The ride back to TST from Pak Tam Chung was a disaster! I ended up touring most parts of Kowloon for no reason. What was supposed to be a 40-minute ride ended up taking 2.5 hours!!! I ended up riding through To Kwa Wan, Kwun Tong, Hung Hom, Sha Tin Pass, Wong Tai Sin, Yau Ma Tei and Jordan FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON! I rode past Nathan road about 4 times to try and find a way to Kimberly Road. Anyway, lessons learnt the hard way tend to last.

Note to self: From Pak Tam Chung, take the road to Kwun Tong and then to TST East. To cut into Kimberly Road, drive straight from Haiphong road instead of taking a left turn to Nathan Road. Or, take a little detour in Yau Ma Tei and cut across Nathan Road and come back in and take a left to Kimberly Road. (yes, all this does make sense to me).

Garmin.

GPX.

Having done the Trail Walker several times, the MacLehose Trail brings back several memories. So, today, we hit Mac 1, 2 and 3 today after a long time!

Teammates running on Mac 1

East Dam (Mac 1)

- Started at 0738 at Pak Tam Chung (yes, that early!)
- Completed Mac 1 (about 10Km) in 53 minutes
- Mac 1 to Sai Wan pavilion (To Fu time) took 51 minutes
- Sai Wan Pavilion to end of Mac 2 took 1 hour
- So the full Mac 2 took 1 hours 51 minutes
- Mac 3 (I did this alone) took 1 hour 27 minutes

(wait times and snack times not included)

Pace was controlled. Did not exceed 13Kmh and did it in a nice and relaxed fashion. No huffing and puffing. The Heart Rate Monitor became a stomach rate monitor when it got loose and fell to the stomach from the heart! So, 220BPM Garmin reading is an anomaly.

GPX

Pictures from this hike are here.

Decided to escape into the world of running and hiking by doing a Mac 1, 2 run/hike at 0945 with my elite team.

The weather was perfect for a run. Misty, not hot and some gentle breeze. Mac 1 was a breeze to complete. It took me about 48 minutes of steady running.

Saw this sign after completing it.

3 hours??? My grandma can beat that! Wonder how the HK Government comes up with these estimated times for trails!! They probably have an octogenarian do it in the peak of summer and use that as benchmark!

Mac 2 was also good fun. Stopped at my usual Sai Wan shop for a nice Tofu Fa before hitting Ham Tin and the concrete path to Pak Tam Au.

I was so near my guesthouse (Sharp Peak summit) that I just had to take a detour to inspect my mansion. So I bid the group goodbye and headed over to the summit. Took about 23 mins.

After ensuring everything was safe and sound in my guesthouse, I ran back down. Saw a line of Japanese tourists on the way down. The lady at the back shouted something in Japanese and the entire line of tourists then moved one step to the right making way for me! Some of them bowed and shouted words of encouragement in Japanese as I passed them (hmmm… to come to think of it, maybe those weren’t words of encouragement but a joke of some sort! They were all laughing for some reason!) Anyway, felt good passing them!

Reached Pak Tam Au at around 1430. Completed the whole thing in 4 hrs 12 minutes, 28.41Km (6.6Km/h avg).

Tee shirt was completely soaked in sweat. Looked for a spare tee shirt in my bag but I remembered being too lazy to carry one. I had a book and a heavy camera instead! Doh!

By the time I reached the MTR in Choi Hung, the air conditioner in the mini bus had caused my tee shirt to smell of dry sweat. Boarded the MTR and looked around. I got several ‘this-guy-stinks-like-hell’ kind of stares from fellow passengers on the way from Choi Hung to Mong Kok. Some dude next to me was practicing some deep breathing exercise that I normally practice when I am forced to stand next to someone who smells of cigarette smoke. Trick is to turn the other way, take a deep breath, fill lungs with “clean” and un-smelly air, bring the neck back to normal position and then breath out slowly! This way you don’t breath the smelly air coming from the stinky person on one side of you. Well, as a teaser I moved 1 step closer to this guy but then decided, in the interest of fairness, to leave him alone! Besides, he looked way stronger than me!

I expected less stares on the train from Mong Kok to Central as I had cleverly anticipated those IFC type girls to wear all the perfume in the world thus mitigating my stink. But, unfortunately, I was stinking too much for any perfume to overcome. So, being the nice guy that I am, I got off one stop before and did a mild jog home.

Now for the hi-tech stuff.

Some analysis is here.

The GPX file