Drawing Inspiration - Wednesday the 26th of January, 2011

Having received rave reviews of my last non-photo (drawn) run post (and by "rave", I mean a single person said it was "kinda neat"), and having also forgotten to bring any method to carry my camera (aside from my hands), I decided to run without my digital third eye, and just do a couple of (dodgy) sketches of my run afterwards.

I set out on a quick 8km road run with fellow HKUST staff, and frequent running partner, Willie along the same course we've ran 3 times over the past 3 weeks. Good for working on speed, there's no concerns over foot placement and the paved hills make you work for it, but allow you to push the pace a little.


The sun was hot and bright and my capped shadow always seemed to be one step ahead of me


Willie though, was always a few more paces ahead of my shadow, and did awesome on the hills, pushing hard all the way!

I've decided that while I don't enjoy pushing hard and fast and roads as much as cruising along trails, I do enjoy doing well in races, and sometimes hard work may be required!

Running is like mouthwash... if you can feel the burn, it's working!!!
~ Joe

New Routing - Tuesday the 25th of January, 2011

Based on my exploratory run back on the 6th of January, I had a new route in mind that would allow me to stay in the Jungle a fair bit longer than other trails. Effectively running down the hill via one jungle trail and back up a separate one.

So I headed out along the road and as I reached the turn off for the jungle trail, I spotted this little guy sitting in a gutter!




Close up of his head. This little guy was more than happy to pose for a few snaps before heading back into the scrub


On the trail that heads down the slope


Wicker chairs that had been dragged up into the jungle and placed about halfway up this concrete watercourse I run down


A tangle of roots and bright midday sun


My route went up past this little shrine that was gradually being engulfed by the tree


Beside a boulder strewn watercourse


Out in the sun and working hard up the hills


A strange flower at some hobbyists illegal jungle retreat

Quite a good run and a route I'll be happy to run again, even if the uphill sections along the trails are killer tough.

See you out on the trails
~ Joe

Sunset Cruise - Sunday the 23rd of January, 2011

I originally planned to wake up early on Sunday morning and head out on a good long trail run but getting home from a friend's dinner party at 3am pretty much quoshed that. I ended up waking at around 9.30am with the intention of running but just hanging around being useless until about 11am when it was already too late to head out, so I decided on a late afternoon run starting from Hang Hau.

I was also late to start on my afternoon run, but this was less of a problem as I'd probably be able to get home for dinner anyway.


As I set out around 4pm the sun was already getting low in the sky, casting golden light on everything it touched.

Despite always having a headlamp with for emergencies, I decided to run the trail section first and the road part on the way home as darkness descended.


Looking towards the mountains ahead




Looking back down from where I came. Hang Hau is to the very left of this shot


The dark side of the hill. Looking towards High Junk Peak, just to the right of centre


At the top of the hill prior to High Junk Peak I check the GPS... Lots of climbing so far!




High Junk Peak looms. I'd say only about as high as the hill before it, but the steepness of it's sides make it memorable!


The shadow of High Junk Peak


From standing on the datum point, the edge of the peak is a couple of feet away and below that, a looooong drop


The golden light makes this wind swept hill and grass really pop. Pity the haze obscures the beautiful view towards HK's many eastern islands


Golden grass with the the series of hills the route follows fading away into the background


Clear Water Bay Beach on the left and sublime trails on the right


Looking back to where I took the last panorama from. It's a pity trails like this don't go on for hours and hours


Clearwater Bay Beach




The sun finally dips below the horizon just about as I reach the end of the trail section


The fishing village of Po Toi O as I head back to Hang Hau along the road


The climb out of Clearwater Bay Beach is tough, but rewards with great vistas (even on a hazy day)




High Junk Peak is the very sharp peak that tops out at around 350m. Looks far less impressive in this elevation plot than it does in real life. Anywho... an absolutely awesome run all the same.

See you in the golden light,
~ Joe

Feel the Burn - Wednesday the 19th of January, 2011

Legs still sore from the half-marathon, I decided it was time to stretch them out on an easy-ish route.


Up the hill along the road


Ferns growing out of an embankment


Rows and rows of citrus trees at the nursery in preparation for Chinese New Year (where they're highly sort-after as they're considered lucky)


A panorama of Tseun Lang Shue with Fei Ngo Shan (Kowloon Peak) in the background


A village man feeds pigeons


The mountains are barely visable... obscured by heavy photochemical pollution (which actually managed to get worse over the next couple of days!)

Well, we're back up to date! Gonna have to try hard to provide timely and interesting updates... I've signed up for a couple of races soon, so should have plenty of photos from the trails!

See you (or not!) out in the smog...
~ Joe

The AVOHK China Coast Half-Marathon - Sunday the 16th of January, 2011

Well, this one is going to have to be a more wordy update than the past half a dozen. I only have a single photo from the Half-Marathon and it's a lousy pre-race warm-up photo!


My only photo from the run!

When I arrived at the start location for the run, there were already tonnes of people milling about everywhere. I headed down to the main area to collect my number bib. Did I mention that it was cold? Well... "cold" doesn't really cover it... it was ucking freezing! So I grabbed my stuff and hunkered down, not wanting to change into my running t-shirt and shorts until I really had to.

Eventually, I changed and went for a brief jaunt along the river there to try to warm up. I made a bathroom call, went to check-in my bag and headed to the start... oh, quite far back. This'll hurt my time.

But thinking about it, I guess it was a decision to either freeze my arse off for 20-25mins at the front of the pack, starting out cold; or starting mid-pack (still fairly cold) and trying to make up the difference. In retrospect, I probably would have chosen the first option, but lesson learnt!

The course follows a reservoir access road with a couple of non-trivial hills along the way.




Out of the gate I was stuck behind slow-pokes and weaving through heavy traffic. I'm sure some of them were probably cursing me: "it's not a race"... well, for starters, it *is* a race, and I happen to be racing the very fit shadow of last years time... so on with the cutting off of plodders!

I was hurting a little in the first half, and worried that I wouldn't have been able to keep the pace up, but the longer I ran the stronger I felt (sort of... hahaha) and I made the 10km turn around at about 45mins feeling good and pushing the pace a little on the return journey.

I had finally caught up to my rough speed category but was still passing people up the hills (the benefit of doing most of my training in the hills I guess). Each hill on the return journey would loom, casting a shadow on my optimism, but each would fall away easier than the last. So I pushed on.

Coming down the final stretch I poured everything I had into my thighs, pushing all the way to the line.

I crossed the line in 1hr35min27sec with a net-time (start to finish) of 1hr33min40sec. I finished in 63rd place overall, 21st in the Men's Open category and only 7 seconds behind the first finishing female. Much better than I expected, actually, but not enough to beat out last year's time of 1hr32min.

I was certainly paying a big price for pushing myself that hard with serious leg pain for the next couple of days!

I'm looking forward to the next race, where hopefully I won't push myself quite as hard!

See you at the finish line!
~ Joe

Pre-Race Prep - Friday the 14th of January, 2011

A very light 7km leg-stretcher for the AVOHK China Coast Half-Marathon on the Sunday.






Cool patchy sunlight looks like off-camera flash here (but isn't)


Cool lighting effects on this stone wall


Not bad running conditions at all


Back on-campus

Rapid Recovery - Tuesday the 11th of January, 2011

Another 8km road run. Legs still sore, but time to start prepping for the coming weekend's China Coast Half-Marathon!


Overcast and perfect conditions


Willie pushing the pace through Hang Hau

A good bit of prep and certainly helped the sore limbs!

Neon Recovery - Monday the 10th of January, 2011

Legs still killing me from the 22km trail run the day before, I cruise along the waterfront in recovery mode.


Ohh, pretty lights


Neon


Looks like a nice place


Waterfront cruise

Almost caught up...

See you on the trails!
~ Joe