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Hong Kong Mountain Marathon Report, Jan 31 2010
Report | Results | Splits (Repulse Bay, Hong Kong, sunny and hot with temperatures of 19-27 degrees) The North Face King of the Hills Hong Kong Mountain Marathon Over 400 runners ventured to Tai Tam Country Park on a beautiful, but hot day. While a few remarkable times were recorded, in general most runners reported struggling with the sudden change in the weather and recorded ‘personal worsts’ for the course. Full Marathon – Stoned Again Stone Tsang and Darren Benson swapped leads until the Twins where Stone pulled away up the relentless steps to win by a comfortable several minutes. Stone suggested that his advantage may have come from using less energy on rougher sections earlier in the race. We surmise that Darren may also be a bit tired after racing every single weekend. William Davies kept up with Stone and Darren through the first two checkpoints before falling off the pace and finishing third again in a repeat of the KOTH Lantau results 3 weeks earlier. Male open runners dominated the race. This is counter to the usual experience that the younger runners start too quickly and blow up on the hot days. On this day, they took eight of the top 10 spots. M40 Peter Lee was 6th overall and won is category. M50 Chan See Kau was 10th overall and won his category in near record time, while M45 Peter Faarbaek was 14th overall and won his category for the first time. Peter’s daughter completed the half marathon this same day and no doubt Peter felt pressure to get back to her as quickly as possible. Claire Price dominated the women’s race with another category-record performance and has now locked up the Queen of the Hills award with her third straight win. She also placed fifteenth overall in the race. Chan Hoi Nam won the M55 category, just ahead of the first female open runner Claire Chapman. One note of frustration relates to some of the last runners who came in complaining that there was no water for them at Repulse Bay Gap. The organizers painfully hiked enough water to the Gap to give each full marathon runner 750 ml of fluid at the Gap. We were therefore puzzled that 10 plus runners received no water. A bit of investigation revealed that several of the full marathon runners had taken extra water to pour over their heads. We’re not quite sure why they thought that in a place with no road access that there was water to waste, but it strikes us as quite a thoughtless act. Even worse was one half-marathon runner who pretended to be doing the full marathon just to grab a bottle of water, only to turn around and complete the final 5-minute run to the half marathon finish. You know who you are and our marshal at that checkpoint wishes to let you know that he’d prefer never to see you again on a KOTH race. Half Marathon – Japan Rising Fujio Miyachi won the half marathon race again with the third fastest time in the history of the course. Ryan Blair gamely tried to make up time on the downhill sections of the course, but Fujio ran up every hill and enjoyed a 5-minute lead at the halfway point. Fujio has now won all 3 races and locked up victory in the series. Martin Kennard continued to show that he’s not just a road runner with another highly credible 3rd place finish. M50 Leung Ping had a sensational race to come in 4th overall, followed closely by M40 Stephen O’Leary. The next runner in, Seth Fischer, confused the starting times and was the last person to start the half marathon race by several minutes. This makes coming in 6th overall especially impressive. Rounding out the top ten were M40 Anthony Davies, MO Adrian Tang, M45 Peter Northam (wrapping up his category for the series) and Andrew Watts. Jeanette Holmes-Thomson continued her return from maternity leave with her first win in the series this year. Jeannette was hotly pursued by several boys trying to beat her, but eventually they succumbed to her greater fitness on the day. Nadia Koucha won the female vets race and Wong Kam Ming claimed honors in the men’s 55+ race. 11-year old Frederikke Faarbaek proved that the Lantau KOTH race was no fluke, finishing the half marathon this time in 3:24 and then running around the beach all afternoon. The next and final race in the series takes place in Taipo on Sunday, 7 March and serves as the tiebreaker to determine category winners. See www.seyonasia.com/koth for further details. Happy trails. Keith Noyes Race Director KOTH Habitat Property KOTH Sai Kung Mountain Marathon Results, 4 January 2009 Half Marathon Results MO: 1) Fujio Miyachi, 1:49:18; 2) Ryan Blain, 1:51:17; 3) Martin Kennard, 1:53:56 MV-40: 1) Stephen O’Leary, 2:04:20; 2) Anthony Davies, 2:06:04; 3) Garrett Quigley, 2:22:55 MV-45: 1) Peter Northam, 2:08:18; 2) Ross Dawson, 2:22:12; 3) Mark Leeper, 2:26:29 MV-50: 1) Leung Ping,2:0337 ; 2) Choi Fu Loi, 2:17:13; 3) Derek Irwin, 2:21:24 MV-55: 1) Wong Kam Ming, 2:33:44; 2) Yu Tung Bo, 2:47:56; 3) Peter Clarice, 2:48:41 FO: 1) Jeanette Holmes-Thomson, 2:14:19; 2) Zein Williams, 2:24:25; 3) Kate Rutherford, 2:25:18 FV-40: 1) Nadia Koucha, 2:30:16; 2) Grace Balingtong, 2:33:20; 3) Catherine Leonard, 2:35:26 Full Marathon Results: MO: 1) Stone Tsang Siu Keung, 3:06:41; 2) Darren Benson, 3:10:49; 3) William Davies, 3:20:19 MV-40: 1) Peter Lee, 3:26:32; 2) Frederic D’Argenlieu; 4:24:13; 3) Andy Thomson, 4:25:10 MV-45: 1) Peter Faarbaek, 3:55:53; 2) Wong Tin Ming, 4:10:38; 3) Siu Man Kit, 4:24:12 MV_50: 1) Chan See Kau, 3:46:42; 2) Ng Chau Yan, 3:58:40; 3) Richard Tamer, 4:01:27 MV-55: 1) Chan Hoi Nam, 4:05:30; 2) Law Kwong Chow, 4:18:18; 3) Claus Rolff, 4:20:24 FO: 1) Claire Chapman, 4:06:23; 2) Dennex Lui, 4:52:54; 3) Li Pui Yi, 4:57:06 FV-40: 1) Claire Price, 3:56:58; 2) Joanna Eades, 4:24:28; 3) Carolyn Kng, 5:16:35 |
