4 Hr 26 Min 44 Sec

4:26:44 is the time it took me to finish the King of The Hill - Hong Kong Island Race. And this is my personal best finishing time for a KOTH full marathon. I have actually managed to cut my last year's personal record (5hr20m) by almost an hour!
The KOTH - Hong Kong race started off at Repulse Bay and ran a 30km grilling circle back to where it start, taking the runner as far as Quarry Bay, Mount Bulter, the Twins above Stanly. The weather was perfect, dry and cool. I turned up with a week of intensive running and biking trainning but it didn't occur to me that I was going to improve by an hour then. Things began to look nice when I found myself catching up with the tail of the half marathon runner (who started 15 min early) before the one hour mark. It has taken me much longer to do that last year. Then on the flat trail run above Quarry Bay, I found myself literally spinning though. Last year I had some imbecile grannies insulting me on that session that I was running too slowly. And so forth with every difficult session, it felt next to nothing and I was actually slowly pulling away from runners behind me. Finally onto the last test, at the Twins above Stanley, where I had a cramp on the 1000 steps staircase last year, I was holding my speed, edging so slowly toward the two runners in red shirt but in vane. Then I saw this white figure speeding toward me while I got to the top of the stairs, so I started charging down to Stanley. The white figure picked up speed and I had to keep raising my tempo. We were already 4 hrs into the race and part of me said I should slow down a bit as position meant little, but then part of me said I should give him a good fight and aim for a 4.5hrs finish. The latter part won, and I was charging down the final 3.2 km of catchwater footpath like I am doing interval training in the park. The guy behind me showed no desire of overtaking me, then I realised that he was using me as a motivation as much as I was using him to drive for better result. So I ran even faster like I got his expectation on my shoulder. We overtook the two red runners that I saw on the way up the Twins and one more runner who overtook me in the first hour and had kept his lead since. It was an electrifying finish as we spinned down the beach for my personal best, thanking each other for a good fight.
To download the google earth placemark for the race route, click here.
Congradulation also to Andy, my temp spark partner, who finish the half marathon in 2:30:04.

Just updated the google earth placemark with more details, you can play a virtual tour of the race.