Three days from now my team mates and I will be in the middle of the Trailwalker Race already. I am normally quite confident, but facing a 100 km mountain race for the first time in my life is making me a little worried. Over the past days I have not been feeling 100% well, a bit of sneezing, coughing, feeling tired etc. But by not doing any sports and taking regularly Chinese medicine I hope to be completely fit again at the start line. Maybe it’s all related to the race, I don’t know, but I won’t use it as an excuse not to go for it 100% on Friday morning at 9 AM!

If you want to follow our team (Team 140) during the race you can do that on http://www.oxfamtrailwalker.org.hk/en/home.html. I think you have to go to the interactive zone (the exact link is not up yet at the time of writing) and on race day you should be able to track our progress from control point to control point during the 100 km race. The link should be up latest by 10 AM Hong Kong time on Friday.

I recently came across an article from 1999 in the International Herald Tribune about the Trailwalker race. If you want to know more about the event it’s a good read. The first two paragraphs already show it’s not your usual Sunday afternoon stroll in the park:

Most of the 3,600 people who took part in the annual Trailwalker race in Hong Kong would mournfully agree that the grueling non-stop 100-kilometer slog up and down the 30 or so hills of the New Territory’s McLehose Trail is an act of unadulterated lunacy.

Tales of Trailwalker-related injuries are legion, with damaged knees and horribly blistered feet being the main complaints. If you add up all the uphill and downhill sections of the winding trail, hiking the McLehose is the equivalent of ascending then descending Mount Everest nonstop.

It will be very difficult, but I still look forward to doing it. If nothing else I will at least be able to eat a lot of extra Dunkin’ Donuts afterward 🙂