5th Trailwalker Training on Sept 10

We did section 3 & 4 and part of section 5 til post 101 this time. They are most difficult sections in MacLehose trail. Participants were our whole team members. The temperature was 27C to 31C and the weather was sunny. The weather report said that there was islolated raining in some area. We started at 8:58am and ended at 7:17pm. What can I say in this training? TOUGH!!!!

I went home very early on Friday. No party... as I know I need to go for a difficult training in the next day. In fact, Robert came with us at the beginning but he dropped off in the very early stage at section 3. He was too tired to continue.. of course lah, so many parties during the week. hehehe.. Naughty Robert! Our team continued our journey.

We started quite relaxed at the very beginning. We were still saying that the trail wasn't too difficult, blah blah blah. well... then, we found out that there were 3 up and down hills in the section.. the last uphill in this trail was tough.. looking at the hill.. Man! it really scared us! Now, we all believe that section 3 is the toughest route in this trail. There were few other trailwalkers doing training there, too. One of the team bought their dog with them.... short leg dog. It is so cute. Obviously, it feels very hot. Along the trail, there was a little river. It jumped to the water and took a bath. wah.. so nice! How about us? We can't jump into the water. The dog finished section 3 by itself!! We sweated very badly. I found I was very "salty" as I found many salt on my arms, neck and face. I have never been sweating like that. We finished section 3 at 12:18pm. It took us 3 hours 20 mins to finish it.

We took a cab to Sai Sa for lunch after section 3. Yeah! We had Thai food. Nice!!.. We filled up our water bag and bottles and took a cab bact to section 4. We started the section 4 at 1:52pm. Gosh! it was so hot! We sweated even more badly. We have done section 4 before. It wasn't that bad last time as it was ranining. But it was really killing us this time. The heat was really bad. We kept drinking water with Pocari powder. We walked slower than we did last time. We still found some trailwalkers running in this route. Yvonne was very smart. She brought her UV protection umberella with her. We really preferred to be raining instead of hot and sunshine.

I wore knee braces this time to protect my knees. Well.. My right knee was fine. I always worried about it as I hurt it at the beginning of the year. However, I got pain on my left knee. oh no. It was pain when I walked down hills and stairs. I walked slowly. I cant' hurt my knees otherwise I cannot finish my 100K. But Adrian said I still walked too fast if my knee was painful already. um... but I really wanted to finish it ASAP. very tired...

Even though we filled up water in the restaurant in Sai Sa. Yvonne still got not enough water. Ben gave her some. Well.. Each of us drank almost 4L water in this training!

We finished section 4 at 6:16pm. Because of landslide, part of section 5 was blocked. So we walked via Wilson Trail to post 98 of MacLehose trail. Actually, we tried to call a cab to pick us up in Gilwell campsite but no taxi was willing to drive there. Hence, we continued to walk to post 101. We finailly reached post 101 at 7:17pm.

Gosh! no wonder Adrian said that many people dropped off at secion4 on trailwalker day. It was really tough. We just did section 3 and 4 this time. We could feel it already. My left knee was still a bit pain. Hope that I would be ok in my next training.

oh yes! Rowley(our colleague) told Adrian and Yvonne that a team of people who had average age of 60 finished the 100k within 20 hours. My god!! how could they do it so quick? These senior people didn't take rest and didn't have support team. So where were their food supply? They hided their food along the trail before the big day!! and they digged them out when they needed to eat!! Can you believe it?