Hong Kong marathon
Highway to world
(8.2.2009)


Preparations

Good or bad - everything passes first through Hong Kong, and hence the title. I was also kind of passing by after having a few weeks in Australia, where I also made most of my race preparations in a nice 40 C heat wave, including the participations in Sydney twilight series and Australia day fun run in Mornington peninsula.

In Hong Kong, I was a lousy tourist and did not capture much of photographic evidence from sightseeing. Instead, I visited the polytechnic university where I met Lei Zhang, George, Mak and several others, and Ada Fu and her student from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. I think having scientific discussions and Chinese food or afternoon tea beats sightseeing as marathon preparations any day. Smile


My impression about Hong Kong was that there were too many people compressed into a too small area, with a busy traffic in Kowloon and the Hong Kong island. The marathon itself was not too crowded although 5653 runners completed the full distance, and much more the half marathon and 10k. Full marathon started at Tsim Sha Tsui next to the Kowloong park, and headed to the north. Most of the route went through highways.


Race story

During the race day, I went to the starting area by walking from my hotel near-by. Following examples of the locals, I just climbed over the fences to the starting area just behind the elite runners. After the start, I anyway got stuck in the crowd for awhile but then started to make careful progress when the biggest rush cleared up.

First 5 km went rather well but the next 5-10km I probably took too carefully as I was getting behind my target pace (3 hours): first 10 km for 43:16. So I increased my pace thereafter. Between 10-20 km the route visited two large bridges with two turning points at the top of each bridge. I counted that my ranking was somewhere around 130 at the first turning point around 15 km. According to watch, the stint 10-15 km went a bit faster despite the incline. The pictures are soon after the turning point.


After the bridges I tried to follow two Malesian runners and another runner. Mainly to avoid running alone against the windy parts. I anyway ended up passing all my pacemakers eventually, except one of the local guy who I followed about 5 km when there was nobody else in sight in front. From the Malesian guys, the stronger looking one came and passed back somewhere around 25 km and continued to storm forward, and I could not follow him. Either he found a new gear from his engine or simply set his pace more properly.


After the second turning point the route returned back to the Kowloon via a tunner, and the 25-32 km was almost all downhill. At the south end of Kowloon there were another long tunnel to cross the bay to reach the Hong Kong island. Here is where the extra minutes were imposed since at 28 km mark (about 2/3 of the distance) I had spent 2 hours being about on schedule for the 3 hours target time. Unfortunately the uphills did not end after the tunnel but there were just a few more smaller hills and overpasses during the last kilometers.

During the last kilometers, two Hong Kong runners passed me and I thereafter followed them. The faster one increased his pace towards the end to reach 100e bonus money for locals who reaches sub 3 hour time. The other one could not keep the pace and I then stormed away trying to give little bit extra for the last kilometers. The finish area was at Victoria Park and I managed to put out a reasonable final sprint for the finish line, completeing the marathon with the following result.

Race facts

Finish time: 3:02:16
Ranking: 100 / 5653
Average heart rate: 161
     
  5k 10k 15k 20k Half 25k 30k 35k 40k 42k
Total time 0:21:10 0:43:16 1:04:41 1:25:46 1:29:58 1:46:36 2:08:11 2:29:49 2:52:39 3:02:16
Pace 4:14 4:25 4:17 4:13 4:17 4:10 4:19 4:20 4:34 4:20
Heart rate 157 157 162 162 160 160 161 160 164 162

Video clip:

After math

Overall, the route was rather demanding especially the last few kilometers. There were many bridges and tunnels, and towards the end few shorter but tight uphills via elevated roads or passway crossings. The start was at 8:00 in morning, and it looked like it might become a hot and sunny day. Luckily clouds appeared soon the change the warming sun into refreshing winds, average temperature being +21 C but feeling cooler than that.

Besides demanding the route was also unexiting compared to other city marathons. There would have been China Town type of streets and more interesting places where to run but seems like the city is way too small for this amount of people, and they just could not stop the traffic for the marathons elsewhere. The route therefore was what it was, mainly the certain highways were reserved for the race but that's it.

One good thing worth to mention: there were always enough water and sport drinks. Only energy gels I had to carry on myself. The sport drink was a kind of bag from which you could just squeeze the drink (180 ml) very fast in your moutgh via a straw even when running. This made the drinking efficient for an unprofessional runner like me as I did not need to stop for drinking.


Speculations

During the last kilometers I knew that the last uphills will destroy my changes to reach 3 hours, not even to mention making a new records. I anyway completed the race in 3:02:18 at the rank of 100 exactly, and that is not bad, 2½ minutes off my personal best from last summer.

Immediately after the race, a local journalist interviewed me for next days South China Morning Post. Looks like I praised the drinks so much that, from reading the newspaper story, it feels that it was my main motivation of the run: to get as many free drinks as possible. Smile

After the interview, I felt that I could have continued running if just wanted. I was not exhausted at all, seems like I just started too slowly and could not compensate it by faster speed towards the end. The last 2km 195m I ran 4:28 min/km with heart rate of 169. Or maybe I should have just tried little bit harder.

Next time. Next marathon.