Hong Kong - Marathon J

Well managed 1 run last week on the treadmill 11K in one hour, it was extremely hard work, this week I’ve managed 3 x 30 minute sessions and then yesterday a tour of Hong Kong which goes as follows:

Garmin sucks, I could not acquire any satellites so have no idea how far I ran, I turned right from my hotel to be confronted with a hill, actually more of a cliff face about 1 in 4. By the time I had reached 4 blocks up I was really panting hard, my map was getting crumpled and I’d put my finger through the location of my hotel, it was also rather hot.

I headed east and was almost instantly run over by a taxi, I thumped his bonnet and ran past. I saw a sign for the botanical gardens so headed there, I missed the turn (so I found out later) and carried on up, Hong Kong is extremely high! Eventually I ran out of stairs and pavement, I was presented with a road protected by Armco barriers and no pedestrian protection or path ways, the view was stunning but it was unsafe to carry on so I turned back. After several minutes and 1000’s of feet lower down I found the entrance to the gardens, they were nice and full of locals doing martial arts with knives, swords and bamboo, they use bamboo for everything here including scaffolding!

Anyway I stopped to look at my map which was getting much harder to read, a local called Ling Ling took pity on me gave me directions to the Hong Kong park, great I thought, until I found out that, like Hong Kong taxis, she had no sense of direction and so I was lost again. Eventually I arrived at an area called Admiralty with my map in tatters, at which point I headed back West in the general direction of the hotel. Running past the Mandarin was nice though they did not appear too pleased with my perspiration on their marble flooring, anyway I carried on to where I thought I needed to turn inland again. After a few turns and dodgy streets I was totally lost....again, my map was now only good as a paper mache ball, great if I was 5 and had some paint, but not great as a navigation device. I thought, tomorrow I’m going back to the gym or maybe fitness first, which I'd seen in the next street to my hotel. I was desperately looking for a sign or landmark I could recognize, then I saw fitness first! Wow I have navigated my way back cub scout style, no Garmin help at all. Arriving back to the hotel I took the lift to the gym and banged out another 15 minutes, my total run was 65 minutes, and included being lost for most of the time and arguing with taxis trying to kill me the rest of the time. Bottom line as much as I hate running machines, they are the best bet here.

To give you a scale of that hill, Nigel walked only half way up it and this is what he looked like

Nigel half way up the hill where we turned off to replenish our lost energy....... in a bar

Nigel's shirt in the bar

Nigel rehydrating