In Motion Asia: Outdoor Adventures in Taiwan and Asia

January 2011 - Clive Saffery January ARA

Editorial Bit:

Recently I read a book that talked about the evolution of news and reporting. One of the biggest changes in the twentieth century was the amount of newsprint dedicated to sport. Until the Rupert Murdoch invasion of the British press sport only warranted a couple of pages. When England won football’s World Cup in 1966 it wasn’t even front page news in the tabloids of the day. But endurance sport, and specifically many of the sports we compete in. rarely feature, even today.

I know plenty of people who would prefer it to stay that way but I have always argued that all sport needs to attract the best possible athletes and all sport has to evolve in order to survive. (And let’s not forget that even cricket now has loud music and cheer leaders in the 20:20 format). As sport evolves it sets new standards: performances that seemed impossible a few years ago suddenly become possible. The naked glare of publicity helps drives improvement and as athletes we all want to improve continuously. So what about endurance sport?

In October Team Buff Thermocool won the AR World Championships at the Bimbache Extrem race but apart from a few thousand people interested in the sport who knew? Even several days after all the teams had crossed the finishing line there were no official results available with all sorts of confusion surrounding penalties and protests.

In December the Hong Kong triathlon association had to rely on two athletes to do well at the Asian games to ensure elite funding. Sports funding in Hong Kong is a complex issue but in simple terms if a sport can do well it gets money. The trouble is that other sports get plenty of opportunities to secure the results that guarantee funding but triathlon only gets a couple of chances a year and this immensely raises the pressure on the athletes (especially if they have to compete with the recently un-banned Dimitry Garg). But the problem facing the Hong Kong triathlon association is no different to that faced at the very top of the sport. The Olympic triathlon champion is news for about a day. Contrast this with swimmers and sprinters. Alicia Coutts won five gold medals for Australia at last year's Commonwealth Games. Michael Phelps has dominated the opening week of the last few Olympic games much as Usain Bolt dominated the final week in Beijing. The reason is simple: the athletes thrive on multiple events both heats and finals. The oxygen of publicity is maintained for a week whereas for the triathletes publicity is fleeting.

Similarly for adventure racing the days of big production television such as the Eco Challenge seem to have gone. People like Geoff Hunt have done a brilliant job pulling together a world series but what happens next to take the sport to the next level?

In the past long time race director Murphy Reinschreiber had his own view on how the triathlon might flourish at the Olympics. He envisages a multiday format with the sequence of disciplines changing daily and athletes being eliminated each day until the best in the world compete on the final day. It’s certainly an idea worth looking at. I’ve attended the last two Olympic triathlons and although they have both been hugely enjoyable events the athletes are simply not in the news long enough. Murphy’s idea might well put triathlon truly on the Olympic map although there is a danger of the format being seen as a novelty.

But what of adventure racing? A few years ago there was much talk about how it might become an Olympic sport but such talk seems to have died down of late. The obvious way forward would be for a sprint type event to merge with the modern pentathlon. Although the pentathlon has a lot of history it can’t seriously claim to meet anything like the standards of global participation now demanded of any potential new sport that aspires to Olympic status.

There is no obvious solution and clearly sports like ultra trail running thrive without mainstream exposure but if the Olympics is truly meant to be the pinnacle of world sport (and it might be considered a big "if") then the gap between the events that are awarded medals and the events that we actually participate in needs to close. I personally love track and field events but how many people do any of us know who spend their lives training for the steeplechase? Not many I'd wager.

The debate will rumble on but the good news is that with more and more events becoming part of a series ( and this is happening in ultras, triathlon and adventure racing) the resulting increased cooperation must help our sports evolve and evolve they must.

News Bit:

The Ironman 70.3 World Championships will move from Florida to Las Vegas in 2011 which probably makes it a bit more attractive for athletes in our part of the world (and certainly with the long suffering person who shares my house), but will they ever get out of the casinos to race? And in another Ironman development they have announced their new Olympic distance series called 5150. Details at www.5150.com including the news of a US$1m prize pool for the Des Moines championship event.

You know this already but just in case it’s news: next year’s world age group triathlon championships are in Beijing.

No official word yet but Ironman China looks like moving a week later to 22 May due to a clash with the Great Wall Marathon. No obvious reason why this is a clash unless both races were relying on what must be a limited pool of qualified volunteers.

China will be a focus for the Ironman organization who has taken a stronger grip on events following the appointment of people who know the region. The ending of the events in Langkawi and Japan was a direct result of this. Stayed tuned for more exciting additions to the calendar in 2011 and 2012. The new location for Ironman China in Tianjin with easy access to Beijing airport and a reservoir swim looks as if it will solve some of the problems incurred in Hainan.

The old Ironman Japan web address now takes you to a similar length event on 17 July http://gototri.com Goto Nagasaki.

The IUTA Double Ultra Triathlon Championships will be in Austria on June 11. All athletes need to take a compulsory “haematocrit” test the night before. 152 laps for the swim, 37 laps on the bike and 126 laps on the run all for Euros 300: a true bargain.

A number of runners (and I admit to being one) have long complained about the inflexibility of the Raleigh Wilson Trail race. I’ve met the people face to face and you couldn’t wish to meet nicer people but somehow their decisions are never the best. Their recent decision to call off the event because of a typhoon that was already moving away when they made their call was baffling. Of course when race day it dawned it was a perfect morning for running. Looking at the way they handled it compared to the triathlon association for their own event on the same day and the contrast couldn’t be greater. One organization was clearly made up of athletes who were thinking like athletes and one wasn’t. To make matters worse (and in my view much worse) the Raleigh people are not giving refunds nor are they returning all the sponsorship money that competitors had raised. In other words they are quite happy to achieve their budget without the event that was supposed to generate the income. Scandalous.

Number of US marathons now in the Rock’n’Roll series: 17 www.competitor.com

Is there any end to this? Yet another triathlon series: the Tri Star series features a 1k swim, 100k bike and a 10k run. Can someone give me a shout when there is a 100m swim, 100k bike and 100k run? Thanks

The Seven Summits has received a fair bit of press over the years with a wide range of people reaching the highest peak in each continent. Admirable though the achievement is there is a school of mountaineering thought that suggests a far tougher assignment is the climbing of each continent’s second highest peak. In the last two years there has also been a challenge to swim the world’s Ocean channels (predictably I suppose it’s called Ocean’s Seven): so far a dozen people have started the quest but no one has completed yet. Since I know you are going to ask the seven are: the English Channel, the Straits of Gibraltar, Cook Strait, Catalina Channel, Molokai Channel, Tsugaru Channel and the North Channel between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Quirky fact: four times as many people have completed the seven summits than have finished Badwater more than three times.

Idly checking on a couple of other race calendars I came across a race with the wonderful web address of www.charliealewineracing.com . Brilliant I thought, simply create a web address with all your interests lined up but a nano second before I registered clivealewineracingmanchesterunited.com I found out it was his name. So, Charlie Alewine, you have my mighty respect for having such a brilliant name; even more respect is due to the fact that the man seems to put on two trail marathons every weekend.

Now don’t get me wrong here. This is not a Brit on an anti-American rant. I race a lot in America: I love the enthusiasm of the volunteers and the people who genuinely have fun at aid stations. It certainly beats the experience you can get in my home country. In a race last year one grumpy couple simply said, “What’s kept you? Last year you lot were much faster”

But please tell me just exactly who was the nutritional expert who thought that peanut butter and jelly (that’s jam in English) sandwiches have any merit whatsoever? But I will not worry: I will simply ask every race director in England and Australia to provide all Americans with Bovril tea and marmite/vegemite sandwiches. Good luck J

Interesting website www.restwise.com I’m sure I will learn this word rest one day but having just passed 2550 consecutive days of running it won’t be for a while.

Spanish superstar Kilian Jornet broke the record for ascending Kilimanjaro. No, I’ll rephrase that. He annihilated Simon Mtuy’s record of 8 hours 27 minutes with a time of 7:14. It’s a 53k round trip from the base camp and after spending 10 minutes on the summit (presumably posting on Facebook where Jornet has long broken the 5000 friends limit) he shot down in an astonishing 1.41.

Slap on the wrist time: some of you have been using this list to spam everyone. It would be nice if you asked me first and in any case since the list is now so big it’s in three parts so if you just click reply all you only get a third of your potential audience anyway.

Shouldn’t all race descriptions be like this? Average riders will be able to ride 99,9 % of the route, with lots of flowing down hills, single-track and jeep track. Do not worry, we will not take you on a road where an ox wagon last travelled during the Boer war, across a ploughed field, parts of the Sahara desert or six times on the same lap (long distance 2 laps). The Leeuwenkloof venue is stunning with lush green lawns and bar facilities for the thirsty after the race.

On the subject of course descriptions how about this from South Dakota’s Lean Horse 100? “The Mickelson Trail is a Rails to Trails project that was recently inducted into the Rails to Trails Hall of Fame”. Is there a vote for this? Do other trails get to vote? Do long abandoned steam engines get one last blast on their whistles to nominate? Marvellous stuff and clearly the Rails to Trail Hall of Fame needs to be everyone’s holiday visit list.

Is there a better sport than kabaddi? It was the highlight of my Asian games watching grown adults playing tag and then battering the hell out of each other once the tagger tries to escape: all the time while holding your breath and chanting kabaddi. Wonderfully mad

Scanning the lottery list for Western States (and finding that I had never heard of two of Hong Kong’s five applicants) I saw that Ultrasignup.com had automatically listed a whole load of my USA results dating back to 1994 which seems quite cool (and helps us all for race applications where a qualifying is needed). I’m not sure however if my 1994 results count for anything anymore though!

During his 40 day run along the 2064 Pony Express trail Karl Meltzer drank an average of three beers a day.

The upcoming Hong Kong 100 has advised entrants that it has been acknowledged as a qualifier for Comrades. My advice: don’t use it. Comrades use a conversion table that works badly against using a trail run as your qualifier. If you were to blitz the HK 100 course in say 11.45 you would be seeded at Comrades the same as a 4.20 marathon runner. A few years ago I qualified with what I thought was a pretty good 9.25 100k time but found myself seeded well behind my wife who had a much slower marathon qualifier. Comrades have actually improved the conversion table (at the time my 9.25 was equivalent to 4 hours for the marathon) but a 9.15 100k time is still treated as the equivalent as a 3.20 marathon.

Congrats to the Richard Ussher led Kiwis who again closed the year by winning Abu Dhabi. The words “kiwi’ and “winning an adventure race” not exactly being an uncommon occurrence over the years.

Knob of the Year? Step forward Tim Monaco who went off course (as did several others due to a marshalling error) but who insisted on a time and age group placing based on where he MIGHT have finished. So did he become the USATF age group 50k trail champion? No, he was wearing headphones and so was therefore ineligible. Ha ****ing ha.

This list acts as a bit of a magnet for brilliantly wacky requests but one day recently surpassed all previous efforts. Within the space of two hours I was asked if I knew any rich cyclists who would pay US$1m to charity so they could ride around the Peak in Hong Kong with Lance Armstrong and a few minutes later if I could provide a list of people who might want to run from Istanbul to Xian. I unerringly volunteered all of you J

Five immaculate BMW’s, two top of the range people movers: a rap star turning up for a concert? No, just the support vehicles for the Chinese army teams at Hong Kong’s recent Trailwalker. Talking of which isn’t about time the event had some rules? As we headed into the night on stage 9 we were slightly surprised by a team running uphill behind us. Except they weren’t: each runner had two people propping him up and propelling them forward and there were another four runners carrying drink. It’s time to stop this madness and ban all mobile support.

Translations of race rules are always great for a laugh. I know it’s a cheap way to find humour but the rules of the 50k team race in Guangdong’s Danxia mountain area are in a class of their own:

“The team captain is responsible for the team’s advance and retreat”

“The team must purchase personal accident insurance, just in case, each insurance premium is 10 yuan” (I wonder exactly what that gets you J)

“Each team member must carry the drug or life saving whistle as a must material for everyone” Choices, choices.

“Each team can name the title of their unit or wear armbands with a team name”

“There are saving cars along the whole course for the frail” Bet they aren’t BMW’s.

“In the end of the course, there are vehicles taking the participants to the city downtown” Ah, that’s where the BMW’s are.

Calendar Update:

As usual I've focused the calendar update on the next three months.

Late Chinese New Year holiday? How about 27 February www.seychellesmarathon.com or miss the Easter crowds and take part in the first Jerusalem marathon on 25 March www.jerusalem-marathon.co.il

The Sabah Adventure Challenge has added a 60k ultra to the annual Easter adventure race www.sabahadventurechallenge.com

Don’t be put off by the name: the Raid Total Centrale Paris is not an exercise in avoiding dog crap on the Boulevard St Germain but a full on expedition race across some wonderfully tough terrain in Corsica. This year there is even an English version of the website. The race is on 24 May www.raidecp.net

After a year’s hiatus the Swiss Jura Marathon is back in a revised format. Two days of stage racing with a choice of either 100 or 50k a day www.swissjuramarathon.com

Strong positive reports on the inaugural Kielder marathon in England, nearly all trail, great scenery and lots of hills www.visitkielder.com/site/kielder-marathon

Next year’s AR World Series Championships will be hosted by XPD in Tasmania beginning 31 October.

I didn’t pick this race up in time to include in the calendar but one maybe for next year. Seven of New Zealand’s iconic trails raced over a week www.7in7.org.nz

The good people at www.xtechallenge.com continue to put on a variety of races in the region. Look out for a self sufficient mountain run in south west China covering 90k in three days beginning 28 June plus a repeat of last year’s Inner Mongolia event (same format) in May.

John O’Groats to Land’s End has always attracted the fit and the lunatics in about equal measure. Next April there is the chance to race all 860 miles (about 55 miles a day), sleep on a luxury coach and, if you win, walk away with a new car. Or should that be hobble away? Details at www.ultrarace.co.uk And if that seems a bit far you could try the same format and run the M2M the length of Ireland (and the winner also gets a car).

At last an ultra with a bit of money (more bit than money but at least it’s a start). The Santa Barbara Endurance Race scheduled for 28 April is offering US$1000 for first place (male and female) plus US$2500 for the first person under 24 hours. With 32,879 feet of elevation gain and 32,852 feet of loss plus a 48 hour cut off the organizers are presumably thinking their $2500 is not going to be handed over easily, The race also features a 100k, 50 mile, 50k and a 3 person 100 mile relay www.sber.co

In the meantime have a very happy 2011 and don't forget to train hard and race smart.

ARA Calendar Jan 3