Race Media

Talking to a few runners Day 3 at finish

Brian McFlynn – overall winner 100km – “Yeah, absolutely will recommend this event as really enjoyed it. It’s the first ultra-marathon I’ve done in a different country. Delighted as never really run that kind of distance over 3 days and kind of a big achievement at the end of it for me. I honestly thought it was well organized as was leading over half of it and was following the markings and didn’t get lost which was a good sign for me as honestly thought it was very well organized and the people who came on the trip had great camaraderie.”

Nicola Irwin – 60km 3^rd overall - “Just like to say thanks to Thomas for stopping and going out of his way to help me when I fell over and clean my wounds and I hope he didn’t miss out on any places. A true gentlemen. Very sore. It was good. It was amazing. I would have rather the first day not been so hard. Then I wouldn’t have been so sore the next 2 days. I only run when I do these 3 day ultra-marathons otherwise I don’t run at all. I only hike. I’ll do another one. Maybe Nepal Action Asia though. More hiking.”

Laurent Brighel (100km – 6^th overall) and Liu Aijing (100km 9^th overall) – “Thank you for everything. Off to Singapore now. The course was fantastic and very beautiful. A bit more difficult. We loved the views and quite lucky with the weather. I really liked it. Here the weather was good, not to cold. The elevation was probably the max over 3 days as the most I would want to do as day 2 was quite tough. Tougher would be a real challenge as day 2 we all finished, but all quite exhausted. I didn’t find it too technical, as this was good.”

Lukasz Paszkowski (100km 12^th overall) – “My feet. Vibram’s. I just wanted to have a medal. Laughs. It was just when you get to those races you want to just get thru. You account for blisters. You assume something will go wrong. It could have been much worse, I could have twisted my ankle, broken my knee. This is bearable. Definitely I would recommend as I loved it. I honestly loved it. The views. It was a perfect trip. Much more technical than I expected so probably if I participate with Action Asia Events again I will not be running on 5 fingers (Vibram) anymore, but maybe you can consider Heilongjiang in China or Sichuan or maybe other places in China as interested in doing this again.

Patrick Law (HK Runner) (60km 8^th overall) – “The most stunning part of first day race is definitely the Yang Tse River. After crossing the tunnel, I was greeted by the most beautiful river I’ve ever seen. It makes me feel small to the Mother Nature. In the second day race, my favorite part is the last part that I went downhill to the Stone City. I feel like Indiana Jones hunting treasure in the lost city. For the last day race, I really like the grass land and the view of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain when I was at the 1/3 part of course. I will consider joining the next year race and must recommend it to my friends.”

Day 2 at finish

Brian McFlynn (1^st on Day 1 & 2) – “Was in a bit of a dark place going up the hills. The last one in particular as hydrated well, but think I didn’t practice enough elevation training as just a lack of training as I do a lot of training on the roads, but going down was tough. Yesterday was 5 hours 27 min and today was around 6 hours 35min. An hour difference, but yesterday was a lot more downhill as maybe over 700m elevation and today was over 2000m so yeah a bit of a difference”, who did very well to accomplish such a great result looking quite fatigued and craving rest and a cold beer.

Thomas Rechtsteiner – (100km 14^th overall) “the views were amazing (Day 1), stunning. Nice. It was tough. Tough race. Tough start. Yells welcome back to Lukasz….here’s Lukasz in pain saying views were amazing”..I had a near death experience. That was tough. Bit frightening. Mentally it was a bit tough and scary as a few centimeters on a few sections. If you miss your step that’s it. But that’s why I took it slowly as was good. That’s the thing as this situation yesterday for city people might be a bit scary, but was a tri light experience as on the edge. But definitely today again it was a wonderful day passing some villages, awesome views. Today was definitely a top, top day. Looking forward to tomorrow. Same strategy as today. Enjoy it. Take it slowly and enjoy the views. Have fun. No rush.”

Andrew Benjamin – (100km 7^th overall) “I guess it was that stage between cp2 and cp3 that really technical section that involved the 2 tunnels where you felt like you were skiing down the hill. That was pretty testing and a little low on water by the time we got to cp3. That was a tough stage. Tough section. That boat ride in the morning was pretty neat. I was disappointed in the 2 km that we had to walk down the hill didn’t count in overall (finds out it did)..Oh really, perfect. (Now happy) Brilliant as great to see valley view of river, lake as really nice. And the start of today’s stage 3 or 4km climb wasn’t, well it was tough, but I thought it was a pretty cool way to start the stage. Little cool, but everyone got in the routine, rhythm and a way you go. Best part today was the first climb today. That was probably my favorite part today as was trying to remember what happened, but the last 3km was mentally tough as mentally your done and finished, but probably of the day that was the most technical and so it was tough. Yeah tough. But enjoyable. Good job.”

Jane Hodgeskin – (100km 4^th overall) – Day 1 – “The highlight for me mentally was definitely coming out of the cave and the view. First tunnel. The color of the water. It’s quite breathtaking. I’ve never seen jade colored water before so that was amazing. And I think also it was very challenging for me because obviously not use to running on such technical terrain. And I was just really happy to get thru it. There were a few moments were I did fear for my life and there were moments were I said to myself when I see Michael I’m going to punch him, but then also thought well when I finished it I thought actually I’m going to give Michael a hug because I’m so happy I finished, it was actually, well, even though it was challenging it was an amazing course. So there we go Michael, you’re still in my good books. The boat ride today (Day 2) was cool. It was quite a unique way to see this gorge and was pretty. Look I thought today the first half was really beautiful going thru all the villages seeing all the rice fields, the backdrop of the river in the background. It was breathtaking beautiful. The 2nd half was quite challenging, but I got thru it again. The downhills were not as technical today, but were still very challenging for me. I think after checkpoint 4 I thought I’m not going to be competitive anymore and enjoy it and just walk it and that was fine for me. I was happy doing that. Lots of time to think and reflect on life and take photos along the way. It was really nice. The villagers. Just how friendly the children are. There was a point where they were chasing me and they just wanted to speak in English and it was really cute…like ‘Hi what is your name’…yeah the children are just gorgeous and the villages in general are just really friendly people and it was just great as it’s almost like running thru the village and looking thru a window into their lives so that was really cool looking in and seeing what their daily life was like. That was really cool”.

Ann Cheng-Echevarria (100km 3^rd overall) – “Yesterday starting at 3500m was really tough as we all felt the altitude, but it did gradually get better, I think when I saw Michael on the first section I was fearing for Jane as at one point where I heard an avalanche of rocks and I knew she was behind me and shouted ‘Jane are you ok’’ and she was fine, but it was this ongoing avalanche that went on for quite a long time and me and Lucas were a bit worried…It was just a few stones to start off with and then am sure when on for around 20 seconds…but like Janie coming out of the tunnel coming out of the tunnel was just amazing as the terrain there was pretty tough because of the loose gravel and Michael was absolutely right in one slight wrong footing and you could go sliding so I did land a few times on my backside there, but felt todays terrain today much better as much more runnable as maybe starting at lower elevation and not 3500m as at 1400m makes a huge difference. I thought the downhills today much more fun as again the challenge is always with the loose rocks, but running thru the forest following the trail of ribbons and the green was a good find as I really liked the last section. It’s really funny coming to the top of it seeing the village at the finish below and actually it’s just like a steep drop and how am I going to get down there, but I really liked it, really liked it. I didn’t mind finishing on the steps coming into the village. It was good. I always thought it was amazing you would bump into someone randomly in the middle of nowhere carting a big basket of sticks on their back. Super, super friendly kids are always excited to see us and it’s almost like the villagers were congregating and waiting for the runners to come by as you could hear them all talking about us as we ran by but yeah they were so friendly”.

Matthew Trethewey – (100km 11^th overall) – “Best part yesterday was just probably finishing as was quite hot. The mid-section was the treacherous section, but I love all that kind of stuff, big drops, fantastic views, but I’ve never been running hiking on loose rock before so that was really technical and challenging which I really enjoyed but the best part was the views. The views were spectacular. Never seen anything like that before. The river, the valley, the villages in the distance. It was just outstanding. Today on day 2 surprising I felt pretty good after yesterday I was looking forward to seeing some more views of the beautiful area that we were in and I knew there were some more climbs today so was looking forward to that surprisingly and it was another good day and it wasn’t so hot so it made a huge difference as it got warm later as it definitely took its toll”.

Angela Flynn (100km 2^nd overall) – “I liked the color of the river. Reminds me of Tibet or Nepal with the clear ridges and the snow-capped peaks on the bus ride and love climbing and it’s been a while since I climbed but that’s what I love. The terrain was difficult in every way. I think you had to have the energy to commit if you were doing the traverse as you couldn’t rest in between you had to know that you were strong enough from here to here and not stop in the middle so had to have enough momentum to carry you over the edges. And then it was at cp3 or no it was cp 2 to cp3 was so hard. I loved it but it was so hard. I ran out of water and seeing all these people in t-shirts and go oh thank god and they just point and they were awesome but I would say oh shit got to go a little further and fell twice, but twice is pretty good for me, but the first time I wasn’t even in a dangerous part, I don’t know what, I don’t even know what happened as did a little face plant, and the second time I fell into a small trench in the rice wheat fields so had a sore back last night. And then didn’t want to put my shoes in the water, but had to get myself up, but it was a pleasant surprise to do so well so that was fun. And then today I felt it was so hard, I think I did a good time for the first VK (vertical kilometer) which was really happy as did 7 hours 5 min today and 6 hours 1 min yesterday. The altitude on day 1 was quite tough as could feel myself working and running my own race and usually quite good at running my own race, but am thinking I’m not going to go so fast that I can’t handle it, but it’s hard work. Versus today on day 2 it wasn’t the altitude that was the problem it was the factor of the heat was so intense compared to yesterday you were going downhill so you were not sweating so much. Going up the hills today. It was hard. It was so fricken hard. I could have kissed the guy, most of them don’t speak English but one guy, I was saying in my head, another frickin climb, and you would get up to a road and you would be like well there would be another sign saying keep going further up and the guy says this is the top, but my quads were so shot I couldn’t even take advantage of them on the downhill. Normally the downhill is my forte, but I just didn’t have the strength to trust my body to go faster than it was. It was hard today. It wasn’t that it was easy yesterday, but today I just wanted it to finish. I love this kind of terrain where you can see a long way down as very different and was welcoming the downhill. And then when we were going up on the 2nd really big uphill I kept turning around saying we should be going in the opposite direction as just stunning, but maybe on stronger legs, but that was beautiful. I probably rested more than I should have as I can’t push harder (following Jane and Ann on day 2), but the views were beautiful. I didn’t fall asleep last night as every part of my body was sore and already had a sore back before I came here, but will go see Alvin the physio (from Cosman Health Group) now to get ready for tomorrow”.

Laurent Brighel (100km 6^th overall) – Day 1 – “Coming out of the tunnel caves I think. You start seeing the villages, the rice paddies the river in the back. Incredibly beautiful. Exhausted finishing yesterday. Was not sure I could complete day 2 as first multi-stage. Did a 100k in 1 go, but never in multi stage. I had doubts. I started feeling good after the first climb, but then was a little tougher then felt better as was unusual. Today was good as after cp3 was ok mentally good as after cp4 got very tough as after this you are just surviving. Or survival mode. Picked up Howard at cp4 and we stayed together which helped until the end. Very happy finishing. Coca cola first and then food then stretching at finish”.

Isman Cooper (Day after event) – 100km 15^th overall) – “Fantastic event. I can't believe how good I feel today. Must still be riding an adrenaline high....”

Karen Goethals (60km – 2^nd overall) – “Amazing and waiting for the next 3 day Action Asia Event and definitely telling my friends”.

Alvin Mesa from Cosman Physio Health Group - "This was a picturesque race compared to some of the other Action Asia Events we've been on with lots of technical sections, but for injuries, not so much as a few minor ankle issues compared to more serious in past events. A lot of muscle tightness due to working hard on the uphill and downhills and Lijiang Yunnan area, where we recommended a lot of stretching before and after and treat with ice when back in their home country. Many have a lot of inflamation as they have been running hard for 3 days. The first day we gave a lot of massages due to muscle tightness with lots of stretching on soft tissue together with lots of muscle cream like tiger balm and other and gave pointers on how to stretch themselves properly. The second day due to more wear and tear on muscles and runners more tired had to do more stretching and taping for some with a few minor mild ankle sprains. Recommendations on technique of stretching proper muscles like glutes and primary muscles. Last day a couple cuts and bruises agrivated together with blisters and some knee pain issues" said Alvin who does Active Isolated stretching at Cosman Health Group who can call if they need him at (852) 2975-4114 or www.cosman.hk who was great help to all on the Action Asia Event trip.
See many of you in Mongolia and Nepal this year.

http://www.actionasiaevents.com/our-events/upcoming-events/