I am sorry that I have been ignoring you these last few days. I have a really good excuse, I have been in Hong Kong for a charity endurance competition race, called the Moontrekker. It is at night and allows some crazy hikers and the insane trail runners to compete against the minds, hearts, and legs of other Hong Kong adventurers through the sleepy Po Lam Zen Monastery in Tai Tong Tsai and leads hikers up Hong Kong second highest peak on Lantau Island, 3064 feet.
My fellow crazy hikers, Kim, Denise, Marj and I stared our adventure by taking a 30 minute boat ride to Lantau Island to start the "amazing" race. We got there with plenty of time for us to stretch and then watch the RAIN start. It rained for about an hour before the start time of 11:20PM, but then the gun went off we started hiking and the RAIN stopped. But it left the trail wet and muddy in a lot of places. Whichmade for some interesting stepping ( the cow pies didn't help either).
I have to say that it was pretty interesting hiking on a trail that you are unfamiliar with in the dead of night! Only about 700 crazy people ventured out to participate in this event. Half of them thought that it would be a good idea to run or hike the 40K route, I showed a little more brains and decided that 25K was good enough for me.
Since I had been running in Thailand, the distance was not difficult for me, the stairs were another matter altogether. We reached the start of the last section at about 6:00 AM - and in one of the pictures above you can see the SUN just getting ready to rise and we still have to climb to the top of that mountain. At this point we have been hiking for 6 1/2 hours in dead of night with an elevation gain of about 1500 feet. We now have to make an elevation climb of 1500 feet in less then 2K - that is a lot of steep stairs, which is why we called our team "STAIR CRAZY"!!
The views were amazing...
Once to the top we had a short 2K down the other side...it was a most "EXCELLENT ADVENTURE" and we finished...
So, Blog as you can see I had a wonderful crazy time with some pretty amazing women, thank you Kim, Denise and Marj!!
4 comments:
I know I tell you this all the time... and I'm sure it's getting to your head... but I want to be like you when I grow up! You are always doing fun things!
Heidi this looks AMAZING!! I would love love to do that. I cannot believe how beautiful the views are. Congratulations! Such an awesome adventure and accomplisment. So...what do you say about running the Seattle Rock 'n' Roll half/full marathon in June? And then I can go to Hong Kong next October and do the Moontrekker with you??
Mom, that looks so cool. I think next year you ladies should make matching outfits...t-shirts at least. And, like Manda said, the view is amazing.
Sounds like an awesome adventure, I must try something like this myself!
The lack of elevation change is one HUGE challenge to training for various events while living here in Thailand. On the advice of some friends, you can incorporate going up and down the stairwells of some of the taller buildings in our neighborhood (I'm doing this in anticipation of the Great Wall Marathon next year--I'll let you know how that works out).
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