Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon 2017

dwayneshintzy

On February 12, 2017. Doubt there'll be anyone else running this, but sure....

They've changed entry to a ballot this year, and just found out that I got in. Ran last year in a time I wasn't happy with (4:01); I hadn't done nearly enough training and basically gave up after 36/37km, walking the majority of the rest of the way. Determined to do better this year, sub 3:40 and a new PB would be my goal. It's been absolutely miserable to train (at least 30 degrees with 80% humidity every day, all day), but has started to drop to 23/24 recently and should be nice come November.

The route itself is quite nice at the start and the end, when you're running through Kowloon and Causeway Bay. The vast majority of the marathon, however, takes place on motorway out to the container port. So it's not the most scenic, really. Last year was absolutely torrential rain for the first few miles which was tough.

funrunner95

I'll be running it myself, first time ever coming out of a marathon ballot! Looking forward to it. The torrential rain looked awful this year, hopefully there'll be no repeat of that for 2017. Incidentally is the weather generally mild that time of year? I can't imagine the humidity over there at the moment, although I'll be training through a north chinese winter for it!

Working class heroes

Surely there will be someone else running it? Surely??

dwayneshintzy

Ha yes sorry, I meant anyone else on Boards.

funrunner95, weather is normally fairly fine in January; anyone from about 10-20 degrees and the humidity drops a bit. Have you been down to Hong Kong much before?

funrunner95

dwayneshintzy wrote: »

Ha yes sorry, I meant anyone else on Boards.

funrunner95, weather is normally fairly fine in January; anyone from about 10-20 degrees and the humidity drops a bit. Have you been down to Hong Kong much before?

Ah that's nice, well bearable anyway. I heard it was a bit of a farce the way the 10k/HM/Marathoners were crowd controlled last year? I've never been! I'm well warned to have a healthy bank balance going down there

dwayneshintzy

Ah the organisation wasn't great at all. Crowd control seemed non-existent, there was nowhere near enough toilets, etc. Hong Kong is a great city, but it's not a great marathon by any stretch. If they were a bit more professional, and changed the route up, it could be fantastic.

They actually don't even have pacers, which I thought was incredibly strange for such a big city marathon.

dwayneshintzy

Have you a goal time, funrunner95?

funrunner95

dwayneshintzy wrote: »

Ah the organisation wasn't great at all. Crowd control seemed non-existent, there was nowhere near enough toilets, etc. Hong Kong is a great city, but it's not a great marathon by any stretch. If they were a bit more professional, and changed the route up, it could be fantastic.

They actually don't even have pacers, which I thought was incredibly strange for such a big city marathon.

Yeah i watched the feed of this year's race on youtube, it was utterly insane in the last two miles the elite runners had to plough through the slower 10k fun runners! I guess it makes an excuse to visit Hong Kong and it does sound impressive to say you did the "Hong Kong Marathon" (I'm all about the bragging rights). That's mad that they dont have pacers though.

dwayneshintzy wrote: »

Have you a goal time, funrunner95?

Maybe sub 4:15. (I did 4:27 in East Cork and 4:18 in the Medieval Marathon although that was about a half mile short) I'll be up in Dalian so it'll be far from ideal as temps go as low as minus 10 up there in January (although its dry cold I'm told, so I may have to do a good deal of my training on a treadmill

dwayneshintzy

I was thinking of how to get pacers into the marathon, and maybe offering to attempt to sort something out for 2018. I'd be completely ignored and (if I somehow wasn't) it'd probably be FAR more trouble than it's worth, though.

I find running in anything above -3/-4 not too bad; some running tights, thermal and gloves and you're grand. The heat I find much, much tougher but thankfully we're starting to cool down.

How long have you been out in China? What you doing out there? I was contemplating a trip to Harbin for my CNY holidays.

dwayneshintzy

Training for this has been basically non-existent. I could come up with excuses, but they're basically bull****. Just gonna try to get some long runs in in the next few weeks, and attempt a slow/steady pace for the marathon itself. Ideally running around 4:30, and going for a negative split. But even that is probably far too optimistic.

dwayneshintzy

How's the training going for yourself, funrunner95?

funrunner95

Air pollution's been awful up here, even by Chinese standards! More or less on the treadmill, I've a moderate bit of mileage in but no long runs. Might aim for 4:40 or so, another three weeks to go so I'll see what happens