In Motion Asia: Outdoor Adventures in Taiwan and Asia

June 2011 - Clive Saffery June ARA

June ARA news & update from ultra-runner Clive Saffery

Editorial Bit:
A funny thing happened to me a few weeks ago: I stopped thinking. And it was a brilliant feeling I haven’t had for years. It was only a fairly short kayak/run/kayak race but my brain had gone into a zone where only the next ten metres mattered and where racing hard was the only thought in my head. I had fallen back in love with racing.
When I gave up playing reasonably high level football (that’s real football for our American readers) to concentrate on running and adventure racing twenty years ago I was asked did I miss it? I had played football almost every day of my life for over thirty years: on some days it was all I did. Yet I didn’t miss it simply because it turned out what drove me was not the sport itself but being competitive. Being competitive means pushing yourself in training and hoping for that often elusive podium finish come race day. Age groups of course help: nothing is more motivational than being the youngest person in the race every five years, but real motivation comes when you find yourself genuinely challenging at the front of the pack.
Reality of course is that as we age our ability to compete at the front end diminishes: and once you get past 50 the decline is often alarming. But many of us keeping plugging away; hopelessly deluded that there is still just one more magical performance in our legs that will magically transport us back to the golden days of our youth. I’m hoping to hang on and race until at least May 2017 which would be the 50th anniversary of my first ever ultra (I don’t know of anyone who has raced ultras 50 years apart) but in the meantime I’m hoping to get back into that brain dead zone in the next kayak/run/kayak race on Sunday. However given this heat and given that I’m might have a glass of wine or two the night before I might stay in bed. Plenty of time to get fit before May 2017.

News Bit:
Kevin Lin won’t be reading this newsletter as he is running The Silk Road…all of it www.runsilkroad.org But be warned, it’s a crap website and I suspect the reports only hint at some of the tension which erupted this week when Kevin and his two Chinese team mates were drugged in Iran (probably by a disgruntled ex support driver). I haven’t been able to get hold of Kevin but they should be ok (it was the date rape drug) and all being well should get back on schedule to complete their run in mid September.
If you’re reading this you are not competing in this weekend’s Enduroman race festival in England. The event has a unique concept: all races will finish on the same day, June 12. The races being a 100 mile run, an iron distance tri, a double iron, a triple iron, a quintuple iron and a deca iron. At least the New Forest is a nice place to race than the world champs in Monterrey www.enduroman.com and if the location’s not enough to tempt you there’s a curry buffet at the awards ceremony J But the best bit (and remember this is after you have raced anything up to ten consecutive ironmans) is that within 10 minutes of finishing any prize winners have to deposit a hundred quid to secure their prize, a free entry into next year’s European Enduroman Championships in Lanzarote. Wouldn’t you just be the mood for another race at that point? Joking aside it looks an excellent event, even several months ahead of race day they had published the menus for three meals a day for all ten days.
Hot on the heels of the bad news of the cancellation of the Abu Dhabi Challenge cancellation comes the good news that the Primal Quest should be back in 2012. Keep looking here for updates www.ecoprimalquest.com
A number of highly ranked female badminton players in Asia are complaining that the recent law change requiring them to wear skirts in competition will hurt them psychologically: girls, get over it. Go and talk to any woman who has switched to running in a skirt, not many go back to shorts. If only I could get one to fit…
I’d be hard pressed to remember the last time I received a letter with a hand written envelope but today I did. Inside was a description of a potential new race in Greece next May: 220k from Delphi to Olympia on rough mountain trails and rural roads. The letter asked if I was interested: you can guess the answer so I will post more details if and when the project gets off the ground.
There are a few new 100 mile ultras around including one next April across the salt flats of Utah.
You may have caught the recent three part TV programme where double Olympic gold medalist, James Cracknell attempts to reinvent himself as an endurance athlete. It’s a project which clearly began life as a serious study of sports science but almost ends in tragedy when Cracknell is hit by a truck whilst cycling across Arizona: luckily he survives. In the first episode he attempts a top 50 place in the Marathon des Sables and with an enormous amount of scientific support he does rather better than expected and his target changes to becoming the highest placed British finisher ever. To do this he needs to come twelfth which he eventually achieves. And of course the record he breaks is that of my sometime team mate, William Davies. The contrast could not be more amusing: the myopically focused Cracknell supported by cutting edge science and the dilettante Davies who ran MDS with a copy of War and Peace as he didn’t want to bored between stages J
The jinx on Ironman China continues: local government water works have forced the cancellation of the swim leg: a classic case of one government department not talking to another.
There’s a whole series of trail ultras and marathons all across Great Britain at www.adventurehub.com and staying in Britain, it has been announced that this year’s HeB2B will not take place and quite frankly I’m not at all surprised. The event was a real favourite in the early days of adventure racing when it was known as the Western Isles Challenge. I will never forget the sight of Ados Crane being crewed by his brother who was transporting all his clothes, food, mountain bike, road bike and kayak, on an open top BMW. The race eventually became The Hebridean Challenge and it retained its appeal as an event that required a brilliant combination of athleticism and brain power. In the last couple of years it has suffered a bit and a simple internet search will show why. The Hebridean Challenge site takes you to an outdated Facebook page whilst the www.nav4.co.uk site is a complete nightmare. The race has been cancelled due to a lack of entrants, I’m not surprised, it looks as if only word of mouth could have got you in. A simple level of marketing could have easily saved the race. Hopefully some of the would be competitors were able to try the cross Ireland race on 14 May, www.26extreme.com
Talking of Ados, his Gold Rush Mother Lode race has been added to the AR World Series www.goldrushar.com
You all know I have an eye for the absurd event and it is normally one of extreme distance that takes a few months to finish. So it is with great and perverse pleasure I must draw your attention to the Beijing International minitriathlon on 3 September. And they mean mini: 17.5m of swimming, 288m of biking and 42.195m of running. Yes metres not kilometers so you’d better be good at transitions J
Good new event being put on by John Jacoby’s Rapid Ascent team in Western Australia in September, details at www.mainpeakmultisport.com.au Staying down under Mark Webber is re-launching his five day race in Tasmania. You may remember he broke his leg when he was hit whilst cycling three years ago but clearly it hasn’t stopped him driving a car (and driving fast) www.markwebbertasmaniachallenge.com A few mad people in Russia are trying to get me to join them in this….I’m tempted.
The annual Hillwalkers’ Register published by the Long Distance Walking Association in the UK is always a brilliant mix of endurance and insanity. The list records all those who made a claim in 2010. The claims cover amongst others: successful summiting of all 2000 foot mountains in England and Wales, all 214 Lakeland mountains contained in Wainwright’s Register (plus of course a separate list for those who also climbed the Wainwright’s outlying fells), the Birketts (all 541 Lakeland fells over 1000 feet), the county tops of England and Wales, the county tops of Ireland, the 2000 feet mountains of Ireland and my all time favourite, The Deweys: the 500 to 609 metre tops of England, Wales and the Isle of Man that have a drop on all sides of at least 30m. Brilliantly insane and the latter group even features a photo of a climber with a seven foot wooden ladder he used to summit Great Links Tor (he carried it on an ascent of 1000 feet before assembling it with screws). Barking mad.
The Wulong Quest will again take place in China with athletes required to arrive in Chongqing on 1 September. There will be a lot more extreme mountain biking this year (think more mountain than biking), a strong hint being that athletes are being recommended to bring strong rather than lightweight bike components. Prize money is again US$150,000. Some of the China based races are in danger of becoming a bit incestuous as entering them is more by word of mouth than an obvious website. Try finding a website for races like Baise Leye Outdoor Quest a few months ahead of time.
Need oddball motivation to race? Well how about finding an event on 11/11/11 or taking advantage of the 100 year anniversary of reaching the South Pole by entering the Antarctic 100k www.icemarathon.com
Sometimes researching this calendar I come across some real gems so if you finish Michigan’s North Country 50 miler in August I can tell you that you will be presented with the biggest finishers’ medal in the state and the third biggest in the US.
Many of you are aware that Charlie Engle recently started a 21 month prison sentence. I do not know all the facts and certainly this is not the place to be judgmental but if you do a search for the recent New York Times report on the case you will find a story that Charlie believes to be true. What is astonishing about the report is the quote given to the jury by special agent Robert Nordlander after he watched the Running The Sahara DVD: “Being the special agent that I am, I was wondering, how does a guy train for this because most people have to work nine to five and it is very difficult to train for this part time”. Incredible as it may sound this was the starting point of the investigation.
Well I’ve got news for you Special Agent Norlander: in the world we inhabit none of us work nine to five, we all work a lot harder than that and we still find time to train a few hours a day. And that’s because we are not sitting on our special agent backsides watching DVD’s or hunting through garbage bags looking for evidence. I am however a bit more relaxed about your use of attractive female agents to extract a confession from me.

Calendar Bit:
For the trainspotters among you who wish to race in an many obscure countries as possible go to www.dilimarathon.com and sign up to race in East Timor but be quick its next weekend, 18 June.
Action Asia is following up its recent successful three day ultra in Lijiang with another one in Nepal www.actionasiaevents.com
The annual L’Etape du Tour (where you can ride a stage of the Tour de France) has proved so popular that this year there is a choice of two: a short (109k) but brutal climb of L’Alpe d’Huez on 11 July followed by 208k Issoire to Saint Flour on 17 July. The organizers also added a race on the Paris-Roubaix course which took place on 9 April www.letapedutour.com
A very good looking race coming up in October in Nepal, stage race options of 363 or 110k www.chismes.eu
Lisa Batchen-Smith’s Dream Chaser company is adding a series of new races and training camps including a road 100 miler, quite unusual these days www.dreamchaserevents.com
November 5 sees the launch of an ultra race in Sabah organized by the same team behind the successful Sabah Adventure Challenge. Entry to the 100 and 50k races opens on 15 June at www.sabahadventurechallenge.com
New race in Turkey takes in the stunning Cappadocia region, 200k stage race in the heat of July www.runfirecappadocia.com
Not far away a new race based on the Badwater distance of 135 miles will take place next July in Cyprus www.cyprusultra.com
Hood to Coast? Wimps race, if you really want to do a team event find fourteen close friends and sign up for the Benelux run in May 2012, 800k in four days www.beneluxrun.eu
It’s not often a race in another country is created by someone from Hong Kong so kudos to Brendan Mason and if you want to race a wonderful out and back trail (or even just go one way) then enter the Two Bays Trail Run next January www.twobaystrailrun.com (although curiously when I clicked on the map I got a view of downtown Boston, now that would be a long run!).
Another new ultra takes place on 14 January in Egypt, The Ocean Floor Race is 160 miles nonstop.
Another MDS/Racing The Planet clone: www.beyondtheultimate.co are putting on a series of races beginning in May 2012 and going through to the end of 2013.
The King of The Hills series in Hong Kong has already announced next year’s dates www.seyonasia.com
The team at www.endurancelife.com are promising England’s toughest ultra in 2012. No details yet but expect a rugged 100 mile course in South West England and a name not a million miles from UTSW.
I’d be rich if I could get money every time I saw the words, “world’s first off road ironman”. The latest version is planned for July 2012 by the innovative team at England’s www.endurancelife.com I hope they succeed, the concept is right, the course looks good and let’s hope they don’t suffer the fate of previous attempts around the world to stage an off road ironman and suffer from a lack of entries.
Sri Lanka 70.3 debuts next year on 19 February. Ironman Korea returns on 3 July along with a 70.3 the same day: both races taking place on a redesigned course in Jeju.
It was originally planned for this year but the inaugural Trifecta event is now scheduled for 1 June 2012. The weekend kicks off with a 5 or 10k run followed by a bike race the next day and culminates with a long or Olympic distance triathlon on the Sunday. It looks like a wonderful weekend of sport www.trifectaworld.com

The calendar has been updated through to the end of August. I will put out another update within the next six weeks. In the meantime train hard and race smart.

ARA Calendar June 10