Recapping the Hong Kong Trail
I owe my conversion into a serious trail runner (here I must stress that it’s the running that I take seriously, not myself!) to a good friend. I’ve been in Hong Kong for six and a half years and he wanted to know when I was going to pull my finger out and tick off the major Hong Kong trails. There is talk of us departing these fair shores one day and it seemed a shame to have not bagged the trails.
This got me thinking. I’d done a lot of hiking on the trails of Hong Kong Island, and even some amateur-hour running. But I was a long way from being in any fit shape to contemplate running any of them.
In one of those intersections in life, the innocent needling about a missed opportunity from a friend collided with the feeling of lethargy, unfitness and laziness that accompanied Hong Kong’s second covid lockdown. I remember resolving, there and then, to get my ass in gear, get fit again and get these Hong Trails marked off.
The four major trails in Hong Kong are, in order of distance, the Hong Kong Trail (~50k), the Lantau Trail (~70k), the Wilson Trail (~78k) and the MacLehose (~100k). The HKT criss-crosses Hong Kong island, the LT is a circular route (the only that is circular) around the island of Lantau, the Wilson crosses Hong Kong Island and the New Territories from south to north and the MT crosses the New Territories from east to west.
I decided to get training and then start with the HKT…and see how it went! If it wasn’t too horrendous then I’ll keep going.
My wife was a little dubious about when I’d find the time or the inclination to train for the trail. We have two young boys under 5 and I work full-time whilst also studying for a post graduate diploma. Time was already at a premium, so how was I going to fit in 5–6 hours of running each week? As it turns out, I couldn’t fit them in during the week so I had to do them at the end of the week. Sunday night usually, after the boys were in bed. Thus began a routine of a couple of 5–10k runs during the week and then a tired 3+ hours on a Sunday night.
The training tired in the evenings actually worked pretty well for me. I got used to being on my feet whilst being knackered, and the ability to get out of the door and get working when all I wanted to do was sit on the sofa and watch TV was good for my mental resilience. David Goggins once talked about not relying on motivation to get you out training. His point was that motivation ebbs and flows. What happens when you aren’t motivated? Can you still drag your sorry ass out of the door and put in 30k when you really don’t want to? Yes I can, because I did! That strength of will served me well on the HKT and no doubt it will on the MacLehose in March.
After all my preparation the HKT was still tough, but not as bad as it could have been. I went out far too fast; the excitement got the better of me; I averaged around 6min/km for the first couple of hours before becoming completely unstuck in the last few hours and barely managing 12min/km. You can see my Strava here.
The day I spent on the trail was, without doubt, a good one. It was quiet on the trail, I managed to get some mindful moments, I didn’t pick up any injuries and I proved the concept of me running an ultramarathon.
Despite the suffering in the latter half of the trail there was some sweet satisfaction at the end of the day. The beers on the beach at Big Wave Bay were damn good! The Dough Bros. pizza(s) back at home afterward were epically satisfying.
Overall the experience left me eager to improve and push ahead to the next challenge.
