It’s Sunday morning in Hong Kong and in a few hours I will fly back to my family in Shanghai. I am sitting in my hotel room after a night mainly thinking what went wrong during the Trailwalker. Right after the Trailwalker I slept very well because I was so tired and feeling sick. But on Saturday morning I woke up and felt pretty good again. I did not have much muscle ache, just some serious blisters on my feet. To me the fact that I felt fine was not a good sign. Did I give up too easily? I thought about it for a long time and my conclusion is that I did the right thing. Continuing in the state I was in would have been dangerous for myself and would have slowed down the team even further. But it still feels very bad to give up in an event that I trained hard for.

Two people out of my team eventually managed to finish, one other person had to get out at CP 8 (around 80 km) after getting hallucinations (seeing animals that were not there etc.). Marcel and Martin finished in a much slower time than originally planned, but they made it. Completely exhausted and with some injuries, but they managed to get over the finish line. Congrats guys, you’re tough!

Was the race more difficult than other years? Some people say yes because of the high temperatures and very high humidity, but on the other hand the Gurkha’s set a new record on Friday with a time of 11 hours and 52 minutes. To me it is impossible to understand how they can pull that off. They seem to fly over the mountains. On Saturday afternoon I was at Thomas Crampton‘s place where I met one of his neighbors who also participated in the race. He finished 3 times before, but this time he (literally) passed out right before CP3 after about 35 km because of the heat. So I guess it really depends on how well your body can handle the temperature.

Saturday night we had a dinner with our team mates and the support team, and afterward I could not sleep until about 5 AM thinking about why I failed. I finally came to the conclusion that I could not have done things differently. Living in Shanghai with a busy job and a family I could not have any more (or better) training. Being in top shape is still not enough apparently to be prepared for all the mountains in combination with high temperatures and humidity. Maybe things would have been better if it had been a few degrees cooler, but I will never know that. Anyway, it’s good to fail sometimes and to learn the limits of your physical shape.

So what’s next? I made the decision not to do the HK Trailwalker again if I do not live in Hong Kong myself. It seems training for this event in Shanghai to finish in a good time is not something I can do. Next challenges should probably be in lower temperature areas where I do not get dehydrated as fast. I don’t know what’s next, but I plan to stay in reasonably good shape for the next couple of months, but not to run any half marathons before breakfast anymore like I did sometimes over the past months.

Thanks everybody for the emails and SMS messages that I received yesterday and thanks to the team for pushing me to get through some difficult parts. Like Marcel said in his speech last night, our team had an excellent team spirit. We tried to stay together and helped each other. At least I had a great time in Hong Kong, both during the practice sessions over the past months and during the actual Trailwalker. And most important, we raised some good money for Oxfam. For potential sponsors, the fact that I did not finish does not mean you cannot sponsor our team anymore (see also my post about this from last Thursday)!

Today I participated in the Hong Kong Trailwalker. I trained very hard for it, changed my diet over the past 2 months (more veggies, hardl any meat), stopped drinking alcohol, and drastically reduced my coffee intake. I don’t think I have ever been in a better shape than I am at the moment. But it seems it all did not help, because I had to pull out of the race after 52 kilometers.

The day started off well, we were early at registration and were at the front of the starting grid when the Trailwalker started at 9 AM. The weather was nice, but soon it got very hot. Official temperatures were around 30 degrees and it was very humid. Not the kind of weather I like for a long-distance run. I drank huge amounts of water and sports drink in order to stay hydrated, and also took regular salt tablets.

The heat was not just killing for me, at the second mountain already lots of people had difficulties to continue. It was so hot there, there was no shadow and no wind. To me it felt like over 40 degrees during the climb. Later in the day there were some clouds, but not enough to cool off the heat. My body felt like it was boiling during the first two sections.

Section three was a bit cooler, but because it’s quite steep it was not an easy one. My dad ran with me and he even carried my backpack. The section was OK, but not as good as I’d hoped. Marcel was not feeling very well during this section, but he managed to recover in later sections.

For me the ‘man with the hammer’ hit me around 32 kilometers. Suddenly I felt very dizzy, I had a headache and felt sick. I had no idea what happened and also not why it happened. Marcel helped me a lot and he got me to the top of highest mountain in that section. But despite eating and drinking more the man with the hammer did not go away.

At CP 4 (around 45 km) I got a doctor to check me up. She could not find anything serious, but I got some painkillers and medicine against dizziness. But that did not help too much either. At around 52 km I realized it would be the most sensible thing to pull the plug. It was a very difficult decision, I normally would never give up. But after struggling for 20 km and slowing down the team considerably I realized chances that I would recover were getting smaller and smaller. I also realized that medical consequences could be considerable if I would go on for another 48 km.

It’s a pity and I feel bad for letting the team down. Even though the 2nd part is a bit easier than the first part, I don’t think I could have made it. Sorry Marcel, Dolphin and Martin! The three of them are still running while I type this, I hope they will enjoy the rest of the Trailwalker and will still be able to get a reasonable finish time. Marcel, Dolphin and Martin, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow night for dinner and drinks and hear all your stories.

Tomorrow’s 100 km Oxfam Trailwalker is not only a physical challenge, it is also an event to help people get out of poverty. All proceeds from the Trailwalker will go to Oxfam, that since its start in 1976 has assisted millions of poor people with among others schooling, health care and water. Our team will raise at least HKD 27,000 this year for Oxfam and I hope you or your company is willing to sponsor me for the event as well. There is now also a special page on the Hong Kong Trailwalker site for this at http://admin.oxfamtrailwalker.org.hk/en/donation.html?walkerNo=0140B where you can donate using a credit card – Note: the site only works with Internet Explorer, so if you have an Apple like me you’ll have trouble donating any money there.

You can also get in touch with me directly at marcvanderchijs (at) gmail (dot) com for sponsorships (I can take cash and deposit that into Oxfam’s account). Oxfam also takes cheques, they should be made payable to “Oxfam Hong Kong”. On the back of the cheque please write down “Oxfam Trailwalker 2008”, the Oxfam account number (Bank of China account: 012-874-0-013039-1) and our team number (number 140).

If you want to transfer money directly into the Oxfam bank account, that’s possible as well:
HSBC Hong Kong (direct transfer) A/C number 001-537000-005 or Bank of China Hong Kong A/C number 012-874-0-013039-1.

For start-ups or any other company donating HKD 1500 or more I will write a blog post on this blog about your company, of course including a link. For every person donating HKD 500 or more I offer to write a short post with a link to your blog or website. Please get in touch with me if you are interested in this. If you have any other ideas related to publicity through this blog, that you would be willing to donate money for, let me know as well.

Thanks in advance to everybody for donating money for this year’s Oxfam Trailwalker!

Three days from now my team mates and I will be in the middle of the Trailwalker Race already. I am normally quite confident, but facing a 100 km mountain race for the first time in my life is making me a little worried. Over the past days I have not been feeling 100% well, a bit of sneezing, coughing, feeling tired etc. But by not doing any sports and taking regularly Chinese medicine I hope to be completely fit again at the start line. Maybe it’s all related to the race, I don’t know, but I won’t use it as an excuse not to go for it 100% on Friday morning at 9 AM!

If you want to follow our team (Team 140) during the race you can do that on http://www.oxfamtrailwalker.org.hk/en/home.html. I think you have to go to the interactive zone (the exact link is not up yet at the time of writing) and on race day you should be able to track our progress from control point to control point during the 100 km race. The link should be up latest by 10 AM Hong Kong time on Friday.

I recently came across an article from 1999 in the International Herald Tribune about the Trailwalker race. If you want to know more about the event it’s a good read. The first two paragraphs already show it’s not your usual Sunday afternoon stroll in the park:

Most of the 3,600 people who took part in the annual Trailwalker race in Hong Kong would mournfully agree that the grueling non-stop 100-kilometer slog up and down the 30 or so hills of the New Territory’s McLehose Trail is an act of unadulterated lunacy.

Tales of Trailwalker-related injuries are legion, with damaged knees and horribly blistered feet being the main complaints. If you add up all the uphill and downhill sections of the winding trail, hiking the McLehose is the equivalent of ascending then descending Mount Everest nonstop.

It will be very difficult, but I still look forward to doing it. If nothing else I will at least be able to eat a lot of extra Dunkin’ Donuts afterward 🙂

Dunkin’ Donuts was supposed to open today in Shanghai, so after lunch I decided to drop by at their store. But when I got there it turned out that the store was still not open, despite the fact that last Sunday their employees told me it would open today.

I went into the store and talked to two of their managers who were on site. They told me that it would take ‘maybe 3 weeks’ before they would open. They did not explain why. The store seemed ready to go to me, the only thing still missing were the donuts and coffee.

Dunkin’ Donuts should have opened in the spring already, but that was postponed until this week. And now the opening was postponed even further. Kind of strange. Maybe they use imported machines that are stuck in customs? Or maybe they did not get their license yet? Nobobody knows, but I am sure they will eventually open.

The good news is that the managers also told me that 3 more stores will open before the end of the year, and next year another 5 will open their doors. I hope for them that they will manage to open those stores on time.

It took about 6 months longer than originally planned, but Dunkin’ Donuts will open its first store in Shanghai this week! The location: on Fuzhou Lu close to Hubei Lu, a five minute walk from People’s Square.

Yesterday I went over to take a look at the store and they almost finished their decoration. The store had a sign saying that it was not open yet, but because I could see fresh donuts on their shelves already and there were a lot of staff walking around in Dunkin’ Donuts outfits, I decided to walk in anyway. It turned out that the new staff were having a training and the donuts were there for that purpose. I asked if I could buy a donut and they said that was fine. There were no prices yet so I asked about them, but they told me I would get my donut for free! Well, that’s a nice service.

I was not allowed to take pictures inside (do I look like a spy or so?), but the store is very similar to a regular Dunkin’ Donuts store. The main difference is that the donut names were all in Chinese, there was not even an English description (yet). So if you don’t know your Chinese characters you’ll have to guess what’s inside.

Dunkin’ Donuts used to have stores in Beijing when I just started living there around the turn of the century, but they closed down soon after that. Likely because China was not ready for this product yet, but things have changed a lot over the past years. Looking at the success of Mr. Donut in Shanghai I am quite sure Dunkin’ can be a big hit as well. The location is not the best one, but I assume they want to start with a lower cost place before moving in full scale (more shops will likely open soon).

If you’re close to People’s Square, give Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and donuts a try. The store will officially open on Friday, October 31.

On Saturday I got up very early to particpate in a 30 km mountain trailrunning race. My driver picked me up at 4:50 AM and we drove over to Hangzhou in less than 2 hours. I had my breakfast in the car and then managed to sleep for another hour or so. The start and finish of the race was next to the Hangzhou stadium, and at 7 AM it was already quite busy there. I picked up my start number (no. 23) and prepared my running clothes. Despite the sudden cool temperatures (only about 15 degrees early in the morning) and a bit of rain, I decided to wear a short sleeve shirt.

Before the race I talked to some other runners, and I met Myckel Bodt for the first time. Myckel is an experienced trail runner (he among others did the 100 km Sunrise to Sunset in Mongolia earlier this year) and he is behind Happy2Run.com, a website for runners in China. He was actually the one who first told me about the Hangzhou race (thanks for the tip Myckel). About 200-300 people particpated in the 30 km race, including several relay teams. After the start I ran and talked with Myckel for the first 1.5 km until we hit the first mountain. We had to climb 700 steps up to the top, which was a nice warm up for the rest of the race. I had decided to take it easy today (for me the race was a training for the 100 km trailwalker in less than 2 weeks) and let Myckel run his own pace up.

After the first hill the trail was still quite easy, with lots of stones for grip and broad enough to pass other runners. But after a couple of kilometers the trail suddenly became narrow and quite steep. At a certain point I even had to use my hand and feet to climb up and (more difficult) to go down. Running was difficult because of the trail, and I also realized I could not get into a steady speed because there was hardly any flat part, it was either up or down. The scenery was fantastic though, running in wooded areas and and running through tea plantation on mountain slopes. Too bad the weather was not very good, so you normally could not see more than a couple of hundred meters.

After about 10 km it started to rain harder and it got colder (probably because of being higher up in the hills). I thought for a second about wearing a coat, but decided not to do it because then I would need to stop for a minute. Looking back I probably should have put the coat on, because I got quite cold and wet over the next 20 km. Another mistake that I made is that I did not eat enough during the race. I knew I had to eat, but my body just did not want the food. It’s hard to explain, but you have to force yourself to eat during such a race. You don’t feel hungry despite burning thousands of calories and if you try to eat it’s hard to swallow. Eventually I managed one pack of energy gel, which is the easiest food to take while running. However, I drank a lot during the race, in total about 4 liters of sports drink and water.

Halfway the race a group of 3 runners passed me and I managed to stay with them. They had a nice speed and it felt good to just run their pace. Going down a slippery slope one of the runners fell and could not manage to pick up the speed anymore, so it was just the three of us. The runner up front had a lot of friends on the route cheering for him, even at unusual places such as the middle of the woods. I found it a bit awkward bit did not think much of it. Another awkward thing was that people took a lot of pictures of us running, when I ran alone not many people took a picture of me.

After running with them for an hour we passed a water station where the guy up front took a bottle but let it slip out of his hands after about 100 meters. Then one of the spectators ran back, got him a new bottle and ran along with us to give it to him. When later on a girl tried to give the runner a small present during the run (he of course could not take it) I suddenly realized this guy must be famous, that was why he had so many friends and why so many people took pictures of us! I still have no idea who he is actually, we did not talk during the race and after I had a quick stop to eat my power gel I did not catch up with them anymore.

Everything went quite easy until about 22 kilometers. Then I suddenly got cold and tired, before that I just ran without really feeling the pain. But while going up the last mountain before West Lake I had a hard time. I was completely on my own in the woods, I did not see or hear anybody ahead or behind me, and I hoped I did not miss the trail somewhere (I did not luckily). After reaching the top and starting to run down my muscles hurt terribly, each step was like hitting my legs and knees with a piece of wood. I tried to focus on the beautiful nature, but it was not easy.

Luckily after about 15 minutes I reached West Lake and ran over the dike to the finish. At least that’s what I thought: it turned out that there was still one long, steep climb plus downhill between West Lake and the finish line… Every muscle in my body was hurting and my mind told me to stop this madness, but of course I went on. Upon reaching the top of the hill and getting my last stamp I could see the stadium already and I felt better. I finished in 4 hours 28 minutes, about the time that I had expected to finish.

Looking back I am not very satisfied. The time was OK, but I felt worse than I had expected. Partly because of the relatively cold weather, partly because of not eating enough, but also partly because I am not in good enough shape. I did not do enough runs in the mountains. It’s a bit worrying with the 100K Trailwalker coming up on November 9. That’s more than 3 times as far and the terrain is similar.

If a 30K mountain run is already quite difficult for my body, how will I react after 60 or 80 km? I don’t know, but that’s also why I participate in the Trailwalker. I want to know where my physical limits are. Over the next 2 weeks I cannot improve my shape anymore, so I have to do it with my current physical condition. I am not sure if I am really ready for a 100 kilometer race, but I will go for it. The Hangzhou race was a good training and at least I was once again reminded to eat and drink enough during the race.

My weekends are never boring, there are always lots of things to do or events to attend. This weekend for example started off early with a cocktail reception for the Dutch Design Exhibition. Spil Games was one of the sponsors/exhibitors so I went to reception, which started at 4 PM already. A bit too early for my liking because we normally work until 6:30 or 7 PM (also on Friday), but I guess they copied the Dutch habit of going home early on Friday :-).

I walked around the Dutch Design exhibition area, had some mineral water (I stopped drinking alcohol completely because of the upcoming 100 km Trailwalker race), talked to a lot of people, listened to some of the speeches and then went home. On the way home I bought a small TV for my gym, so I could finally watch movies while running long distances on the treadmill.

At home I installed the TV and connected it to an old DVD player and it worked fine. To test it I did a 30-minute work-out, which went quite well considering the fact that I had already done a 1-hour run in the morning. Afterward I played with Scott until my wife came home from work, we had dinner together and then I read magazines and newspapers until I could not open my eyes anymore.
Saturday morning we got up early because Scott’s hair dresser came to our house. He comes regularly and when he was younger Scott just slept through most of his hair cut. But now that he is a bit older he started to have a mind of his own and was not happy at all with someone trying to cut his hair. He got very upset, crying, screaming and kicking his feet in anger. Our nanny had a hard time to keep his head still. I felt bad for him, but what can you do? The good thing was that right after Mr. Hairdresser left Scott fell asleep (he was exhausted) and after he woke up an hour later he seemed to have forgotten all about what had happened.

Because the weather was nice I decided to go for a run in the early afternoon. I first ran to the new metro line 9, which is only a 10-minute run from my house, and from there took the metro to Sheshan. I could have driven there myself or taken a taxi, but the metro is much faster. I got off one stop before Sheshan and ran from there to the hill. I started with a one-hour run in the countryside around the hill and was surprised to see how many new compounds are being built there. Luckily the roads were not very busy and it was a pleasant run. It was still quite warm though (about 28 degrees) so I was glad I took enough sports drink and water with me in my backpack. After the first hour I ran up and down the 100 meter high hill a couple of times and then did some more jogging around Sheshan. After 3 hours I took the metro back, a nice work-out for a Saturday afternoon and a good training for the 100K race. Not as good as off-road mountain training in Hong Kong, but a good substitute.

Saturday night I went to the JZ Club, because I had heard that jazz singer Laura Fygi would do a surprise performance with Rolf Becker’s JZ Big Band. As usual, the jazz club was completely full already when I arrived around 10:30 PM, but Rolf had kept a seat for me at the table next to the stage. I met a lot of people there and had a great time. Laura gave a great performance, she knows how to make a great show when she is on stage. She sang some famous songs (Fly me to the Moon for example, but this time in French) and some songs from her latest album Rendez-Vous, and the audience loved them all. Great to see her on the small stage of my favorite jazz club (Laura said it was the smallest stage she had ever been on!).

Sunday I went among others to the Formula One race on the Shanghai Circuit. I was a bit early so also watched the GP2 Asia race and the Porsche Carrera Cup, but of course the F1 was the most impressive. It was my fourth year in a row to see the F1 monsters race and it does not get boring. Too bad that the Chinese audiences are not so interested anymore. The organization changed a lot of grandstands into advertising signs for the Expo 2010 and a lot of the unsold seats were given to high school classes (that all had to leave halfway during the race). The company that had invited me got me a small video device that allowed me to watch the race on a small screen (with comments on a special headphone). You could change the camera feed yourself, for example by choosing the on-board camera of your favorite driver. Quite a cool gadget, and it made it a lot easier to follow the race.

I ended the day at Abbey Road where I met with Gary for a drink. We had not seen eachother for a few weeks because we both had been traveling and it was good to catch up. When I got back home Scott woke up, so I held him for a while and fed him a bottle before putting him to sleep again. I then followed his example and had an early night as well. Once again an eventful weekend in Shanghai!