Innothon 10 km was held on 2019-10-26 at Hong Kong Science Park, which was my first running race after my 1-year break in running. I did it as part of my plan to run a half marathon in November. I started serious training 3 weeks before the race, running about 2 – 3 times per week, most commonly including a long run and an interval run, and another format if I ran 3 times in that week, with weekly mileage…
Today I did a marathon swimming race, Clean Half, in Hong Kong despite the escalating social unrest which effectively put the city under martial law as the MTR was destroyed (but nearly all buses still ran as usual), malls closed, and many events (including scouting activities, orienteering races, triathlon training, lifeguard exams) cancelled with a short notice. It is a 14 km (claimed to be 15 km by the organiser, but satellite image showed the course to be about 14…
On the day after mid-autumn festival, I did the race “The Polson 5”, which is a 5 km (4.7 km measured on Google) swimming race from Stanley Blake Pier to Repulse Bay. This is the first time that I did the race, also the first time for my idol Alex Fong (who is doing a Hong Kong Island circumnavigation in November) as well. On the days before the race, I was really worried because the marine current prediction said that…
Last Sunday I did my first swimming race after returning from my Europe trip, DWB TT, the 2nd race in OWSHK race series this year. DWB TT stands for “Deep Water Bay Time Trial”, unlike normal races, time trial means that drafting is not allowed, and interval start is used such that it’s a race of individual effort. As an orienteer, I’m very familiar with the race format because most formal orienteering competitions are in interval start to minimise following….
Today I did my first aquathon race this year (as the previous race at Repulse Bay was weathered out), which was 3 years after I started doing aquathons and the first race since I joined Tritons. The race was at Tai Po Waterfront Park, the format was swim 1.5 km (3 loops of 500 m) then run 6 km (3 loops of 2 km). The swim:run ratio was 1:4, which I consider the perfect ratio, i.e. for an athlete with…
It was the day for the final race of the trip. Since the race was early, the travel agency arranged with the hotel to have an early breakfast starting from 06:00, because we had to check out before 07:15 if we were not staying afterwards. We were then carried to Cemil Topuzlu Parkı for the race. We had to board 2 specifically-prepared athlete boats at Cemil Topuzlu Parkı, which carried all 2500 of us stripped down to only our swimsuits,…
The competitions this day were middle distance, then followed by PreO in Tahkovuori. I brought my swimsuit to have some swimming before the race, but due to time constraint, I could only swim for 1 hour, about 2.5 km there. If I planned properly I could swim for 3 hours between the sprint and TempO competitions the day before as there was much time between the competitions, and there were not much walking needed to the starts. The water temperature…
The competitions moved to Tahko starting from this day. The competitions were sprint then TempO in Tahko village. I did class H21E in sprint as I am an elite competitor in sprint back in Hong Kong. However, in the competition I was burnt out after about 9 controls and started to get confused, nearly missed a control point as well. I returned at 31’25”, again the last competitor in my class, while the second last was only 23’53”, much like…
This day was officially designated a rest day by Fin5, however it was the most important day for me in this trip because despite a “rest day”, there were 2 world ranking competitions, 1 TempO and 1 PreO on that day. These world ranking competitions were held in Halssi, at a walkable distance from Nilsiä which meant I didn’t need transport on the day. We did TempO first, then PreO. There were 7 stations with 5 controls each in TempO….
I started doing the competitions on the 2nd day of Fin5. It was a long distance competition, followed by a PreO (1st competition in TrailO). I took the organiser bus to the competition, but it didn’t work after the competition since the return time was between the competitions. I did class H21AL (L meant shortened distance) in the middle and long competitions, and this day it was about 7.2 km. I was the last competitor returning in 2 hours, but…