The man covered head-to-toe in his Christmas tree costume on the start line of Hong Kong’s Streetathon marathon on Sunday must have felt as smug as he did snug.
A cruel wind whipped in from Victoria Harbour, leaving runners on the bridge at East Coast Park grateful for the heat created by the mass of bodies preparing to tackle a harsh 26.2-mile (42.1km) course.
Come the finish line, that gratitude would have multiplied tenfold had there been drinks and food available for rapid refuelling. But nothing, not even bread and water. One shivering runner, whose blue lips betrayed a plunging body temperature, was advised by a medical worker to walk to the nearest McDonald’s for hot coffee.
Organisers could hardly be blamed for the chill, though, and pre-race communication underlined the imperative of arriving armed with warm clothing. A race pack collected during the week from the hard-to-reach MegaBox shopping centre in Kowloon Bay contained warm cagoules and foil blankets – a godsend as sweaty tops met icy air following the run.
As for the course, this writer found it a grind, mentally and physically. A caveat is that personal views are heavily slanted by your own condition. If you merely play at training, then do not be surprised if a sharp incline out of Kai Tak Tunnel after 39.5km, and a closing kilometre into a brisk headwind, make you want to weep.
A personal opinion that the course featured too many U-turns and entered some pretty grey terrain was supported elsewhere, however.
“Tough” was the buzzword among runners, reflecting on the tunnels and bridges and ascents and descents encountered.
“It was very hot in the tunnels, then extremely cold coming out … and there was a big hill right before a turnaround point at 20km – it was desperate,” one said.
“Very bad route,” commented another, while plans for police to block later runners at Cha Kwo Ling Park to release traffic were described as “unacceptable for a road race”. The same runner said they had “blacklisted” the event.
That felt premature, given this was Streetathon’s marathon debut, after organisers RunOurCity were “rewarded for 10 years of persistence”, when granted permission to add the longer distance to two half-marathon and two 10km events.
Lessons will be heeded, surely, from the congested tunnels at the outset, and an unsatisfactory section covering around 2km when runners had to mix with Sunday morning pedestrians.
Course volunteers were indefatigably cheery, which goes a long way when it is all you can do to keep moving forwards. Drinks and a variety of food were in healthy supply along the convoluted route, which visited the Central-Wan Chai Bypass and Cross-Harbour Tunnel on its way to the dry finishing point of San Shan Road.
Earlier, a special MTR service began at 3.44am, supplying a stress-free pre-race experience – after a peculiar walk to the station, when runners encountered the last of Saturday night’s partying.
Reports from the half-marathon mirrored those of the 26-milers. In short, a difficult and prosaic course, runners hungry and thirsty after covering 13.1 miles on foot, and unsure whether they will be back.
Whatever the event, however, the worst time to ask a runner if they will repeat the experience is when their legs are demanding to never move again.
“The most meaningful and party-felt marathon ever,” as promised by organisers in return for the HK$520 entry fee (HK$420 for the half-marathon), this was not. But there was enough that was good to want to see how it unfolds second time around. And, yes, I beat the Christmas tree.
