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Sham Tseng Mountain Marathon Report, 11 Feb, 07
Report | Results | Splits (Sham Tseng, Hong Kong 11 February 2007. 18-21 degrees, overcast at the start, turning sunny. Around 80% humidity.) Full Marathon - Right Way William Despite challenging, humid conditions, William Davis ran the third fastest time in the history of the KOTH Sham Tseng Full Marathon, crossing the finish line in 3:51:20 to secure an 8 minute victory over Cosmo Boy Law Chor Kin. William had shown great potential in previous races this series, only to be undone by wrong turns. This time he left nothing to chance, even showing off a copy of the course route description tucked into his water belt. Even faster than his running was his departure at the finish to catch a flight: Departing before the second runner finished. William's splits reveal him to be a particularly strong uphill climber and he has shown the potential to give current KOTH Stone Tsang some competition next season. Law put on a final burst of speed at the finish to become only the 6th runner to ever finish the course in less than 4 hours. In typical Cosmo Boy fashion, Law actually had the fastest split on the second half of the course, but had given up too much time to William on the first half to challenge for the victory. Fellow open category racers Lam Ka Hei, Marco and To Chi Shing, Quick finished 4th and 5th in the race respectively. Of note, Quick ran 10 minutes faster than he did the previous year. Patrick Ford was the third runner in overall and the winner amongst a deep field of MV-45's. His 4:10 time was good enough for a new age group course record and victory in the series over age group and race day runner up Chan Kwok Keung. Li Cheuk Ming captured third place in the category. Tim McCosker pronounced the course sadistic but still won the MV-40 race, finishing seventh overall, just behind Chan Kwok Keung. And lest anyone doubt, the Madness is back! Following on a 5-hour training session on the day before, Michael Maddess managed to finish second in the MV-40 category, just 45 seconds behind Tim. Apparently, Michael has either just come into money or received sponsorship to go run one of those really expensive desert races and this weekend marked the beginning of his training regime. An amazing 8 more MV-45s finished before the third MV-40 runner, Yuen Kwok Man, crossed the line. Leung Kam Yuen won a closely contested battle with his friend Lam Ngok Kam to win the MV-55 race, though Lam has wrapped up victory for the series. So Wai Kwong finished third. In the ladies race, Melissa Lo almost didn't make the starting line, sprinting across the dam to join the race just as it started. This probably both warmed her up and tired her out. She won the race in 5:18:25, but we have seen her run faster. Ladies vet winner Carolyn Kng was just 4 minutes behind, finishing in almost exactly the same completion time as on Green Power the week before. Female open runner Ma Yan Wah was third in, followed by veteran "Marlboro" Ann Miles (battling the flu) and open runner Sung Sau Fun. Veteran Leung Shiu Fung delightedly rounded out the podium postions. Half Marathon - Parks in a Comeback; Wardlaw for the Ages; JoeJoe for Fun Rob Parks enjoyed a paradigm shift the previous week. Lamenting his struggles on the full marathons this season, his wife replied that perhaps he should try a half marathon instead. Rob thought about this and decided that perhaps his wife was correct that he simply wasn't putting in the training to race the full marathons to his previous high standards. With a shorter distance to focus on, Rob ran a strong controlled race and then turned on the jets after the last checkpoint to ease past Chris Wardlaw and record his first KOTH victory since 2002. Chris, meanwhile, not only managed to come in second overall, but recorded an imposing MV-55 age group record time of 2:14:50. As Chris said at the end, "I'm just running as hard as a I can, while I can, to give these younger guys something to shoot for in 10 years." As in the full marathon, the MV-45s turned out to have the deepest field of the race. Leung Ping scampered past Peter Hopper to finish third overall and set an MV-45 course record of 2:15:32. Leung also wrapped up the MV-45 series championship with this win. Peter was 4th overall, one week after snatching defeat from the jaws of victory 100 meters from the finish in the Green Power race. MV-40 Peter Northam was next in, before another onslaught of MV-45s led by Wong Ip Chor, Choi Fu Loi and Yip Kam Shu. Finally, 2 open runners, Adrian King and Nick Chappell, finished to round out the top 10. MV-40's Chan Sze Chiu and Tsui Wai Lam collected their age group second and third prizes respectively as did Cho Yan Kwong and John Antweiller and the MV-55 category. JoeJoe Fan ran on the day just for some alternative marathon training and a bit of fun. However, when she realized that she could best her own course record, she turned on the jets and set a new female mark of 2:25:28. Having wrapped up Queen of the Hills already, Jeanette Holmes-Thomson dropped back down to the half marathons and finished second, a couple of minutes ahead of Claire Price. Louise Dorman ended the series the way she began it last November, with victory in the ladies vet race. Anne Knecht-Boyer finished second and Joanne Von Lanthem third. Kyoko Taniguchi finished in 4th. Nearly 800 runners took part in KOTH races this season making it our most successful to date. We are grateful to all of you for your participation and to our sponsors Sunhing Millenium, ADM Capital, Swire Coca-cola, Power Bar, Protrek and MBT for making it all possible. The finale of the season is the annual awards dinner, which will take place on Friday evening 9 March in Delaneys in Wanchai. This is your chance to swap stories with fellow trail runners, collect pictures of yourself from the series and salute all of the category winners and the King and Queen of the Hills. Registration forms are available on www.seyonasia.com. Happy trails! Keith Noyes KOTH Sham Tseng Full Marathon Results MO 1) William Davis, 3:51:20; 2) Lam Ka Hei, 4:13:27; 3) To Chi Shing, 4:15:14 MVX 1) Patrick Ford, 4:16:30; 2) Chan Kwok Keung, 4:50:50; 3) Li Cheuk Ming, 5:01:56 MV 1) Tim McCosker, 4:19:08; 2) Michael Maddess, 4:19:53; 3) Yuen Kwok Man, 5:05:52 MS 1) Leung Kam Yuen, 5:12:32; 2) Lam Ngok Kam, 5:14:46; 3) So Wai Kwong, 6:20:51 FO 1) Melissa Lo, 5:18:25; 2) Ma Yan Wah, 5:30:08; 3) Sung Sau Fun, 5:46:41 FV 1) Kng Poey Lyn Carolyn, 5:22:07; 2) Ann Miles, 5:45:50; 3) Leung Shiu Fung, 6:13:29 KOTH Sham Tseng Half Marathon Results MO 1) Rob Parks, 2:13:44; 2) Adrian King, 2:25:14; 3) Nick Chappell, 2:25:17 MVX 1) Leung Ping, 2:15:32; 2) Peter Hopper, 2:17:39; 3) Wong Ip Chor, 2:22:09 MV 1) Peter Northam, 2:18:45; 2) Chan Sze Chiu, 2:53:30; 3) Tsui Wai Lam, 2:54:52 MS 1) Chris Wardlaw, 2:14:50; 2) Cho Yan Kwong, 2:56:09; 3) John Antweiller, 3:11:47 FO 1) JoeJoe Fan Suiping, 2:25:28; 2) Jeanette Holmes-Thomson, 2:32:08; 3) Claire Price, 2:34:15 FV 1) Louise Dorman, 3:09:01; 2) Anne Knecht-Boyer, 3:10:39; 3) Joanne Von Lanthem, 3:23:10 |
