Hola Everyone..
 

About all I can say is WOW..
For people that just want a quick race report here you go..
This was a tough race. (For me.. you 100 miles this is a kiddies race..)
There was a lot of up.. And real quad burning down.. and temperature was 27-29c during the day.. The end..

..finished the 50km race, in a time of 11:44:00, so 18th overall out of over 100 racers, only about 45 completed the race.. the word through social media is this is the toughest race they have ever done..
 

WINNERS 3 closest to race finish time;

Now for a more in depth report for racers, or people that want to experience new countries, or new cultures, or simply a new race experience. The whole event from start to finish was an incredible experience.. and that is part of this report. It just isn’t about running up and down 6 mountains. The experience was from registering, to the new friends in Quzhou, to the Crazy mountains.

Please excuse any spelling mistakes, grammar and not correct spacing. I typed this whole report on my tiny iPhone5.

But I guess I should start at the beginning a couple months ago..
I was going to China in November for work and wanted to find a race. Remember that China is the same size as Canada. So it is like asking to find a race in Canada.. And there are 40 cities like Toronto’s, 40 Montreal’s, 40 Vancouver, 40 Golden, and 40 Squamish, and Yes more than 40 Grouse Grinds.. get the point..
So I went to UTMB to the “qualifying races” it is a great way to find races anywhere in the world. So there was only one race in China on my date.. and this was it.. it was 50 km with 4,200m up.
It looked more difficult than I can do.. But what da heck.. you only live a couple times. Go for it..
But I could not find out anything on the race. So I started asking my Chinese friends, we slowly started narrowing it down, and got a contact.. and we tried to register..
They came back and said I was too old for the race. How the.. can 39 be too old for a race.. (those that know me might argue with the 39). Anyways, Terry doesn’t take No for answer.. (remember the too old part later). Thru Ross at work, and Sophia in Shanghai, we finally got some information.
But I still need to find out where in China this race was.. is there hotels.. is there aid stations.. how do I even get to the race start.. the list goes on and on.. but all fairly critical information to the most difficult race of your life coming up, and also in a country, and area that does not speak English.
But it was all part of the excitement. For a month I was so happy to get any news from Ross or Sophia.. I finally knew who the race director was.. Ya Ping.. she was going to help me so that I could race..
it was a bit of an exercise. I would ask Ross a race question.. he would WeChat Ya Ping, but with the time difference it was the next day I would hear back.. (WeChat is their Whatsapp, but on steroids).
WeChat can do anything.. not just messaging around the world, business cards aren’t needed, WeChat exchanges everything, you book taxis, pay restaurant bills.. believe it or not you can even donate money to a homeless person’s WeChat account..
Funny tonight I went to a restaurant to eat, went to pay afterwards with cash.. and they never use cash. They owed me 11 RMB back. The equivalent of $2.. the owner check the drawer, checked her purse, asked a couple staff, and they didn’t have $2.. everything is done with WeChat.
Back to race..
When Ya Ping said “No problem I was finally in the race..” I had a smile on my face all day, and couldn’t concentrate on business or emails that day..
Wow.. how exciting is that.. I have just been accepted into a race that they said I was too old.. in a city I don’t know where, and it looks like it will be the toughest race of my life.. 4,200m in 50km and not a single person will speak English..
Forget about the fact that at the same time I was ordering a full truckload in Pomegranate juice, two truckloads of Prune juice, 200,000 lbs of Cranberries, organizing packaging for ten 40ft containers in Chile, and bottling a container of Organic Blueberry juice to Taiwan.. oh yeah.. I was also doing a contract for an Exclusive Agreement for China.. This was a ton of money in this month.. but Holy Crap.. none of that mattered, Ya Ping just said I could do her race..

Hmmmm.. I maybe have a slight ADDT.. or whatever the popular word today is for short attention, easily side tracked..
Sorry.. what was I saying. Oh yeah.. running.
I remember recently when I was in Korea.. and really wanted to run up my favourite mountain. Mt. Bukhansan the next day. And then the BC Gov’t guy at our booth had to give me a shake. He said “Terry what is more important.. running up the mountain, or meeting with a Billion dollar company..”
Hmmmm.. that is a tough one.. ok.. I guess I can meet with them if you want.. (but I still prefer the mountain..)

Sorry way off track.. ADDT..

Back to the race. Ok.. Ross organized me being in the race..
Sophia helped ensure I was in, and she booked my hotel and sent me a train schedule.

Pre race. I flew to Korea, and ran up and around Mt Bukhansan.. then met with the Billion dollar company.. (notice the meeting was after running Mt. Bukhansan..)
Then flew to Taiwan.. had two meetings the next day.. then to bed about 9pm. As I had to be up at 3am to get to a fun 21km mountain race.
Day after the race I flew from Taiwan to Shanghai. Worked all week at a trade show. Then Friday morning onto the bullet train down to Quzhou.. Wang Fong booked my train ticket.. thru WeChat of course.
it’s funny, During the trade show, no one I asked had ever heard of Quzhou.. so I pictured it being a quaint tiny village.. I googled “population of Quzhou. Wow.. it is 2.5 million people, and no one has heard of it.. it’s too small of a city.. equal to Vancouver.. the 3rd largest city in Canada, and no one has heard of it..
bullet train was 2 hours, and average speed was 290/km hour.. smooth and quiet as anything.

Arrived at Quzhou train station and got taxi to my hotel. About 10 minutes, and was only $8rmb, about $1.60..

At the hotel I finally got to meet Ya Ping.. she got my badge and package. A super cool tech shirt, whistle, and survival blanket..
the guy that spoke a bit of English at checkin kept asking me if I wanted to go have a rest.. “why do you keep asking me that.. I am 39.. stop it..”

Bus was arranged thru Wa Wa (Ya Ping’s daughter) to take me from hotel to start line.
That night Ya Ping invites me to dinner.. but she was too busy with registration to go. But Wa Wa, and Shuum (??) took me to dinner along with Karl, an Elite Irish guy living in China for 3-4 years. He does almost a race a week through out China, he is sponsored by one of the top athletic company in China.. he does a 33-34 min/10km.. he felt his time might be 6-7 hours in this race.
We went to a very old heritage part of the city that has been restored. We had a fantastic meal.. not that I could eat a couple of the dishes (??). And I asked for some rice to go.. just in case no food for me to eat in the restaurant at 4am.

After dinner Wa Wa and Shuum took us to an area with an original 300-500 year old gate house.. it was 8 pm, but there were 3-10 groups of older person doing their form of line dancing, or Taichai, And then an Amazing 20 minute light show was shone onto the stone wall and gate house..

Next morning at the start line I was blown away by the professionalism of the set up.. there were barricades, banners everywhere, a massive stage, and constant light show.. music playing to pump everyone up..
I started looking at all the racers in the 50km and 100km, and wow these guys are in shape.. look at the legs, look at how thin and fit these guys are etc.

.. Wow.. My thumbs are getting tired.. I am doing all this on my little iPhone keypad.
It is DEFINITELY longer than I intended.. but it was just such a unique experience.
When you do a race in Vancouver, no big deal.. drive to the race.. run really hard but have fun, possibly a Podium, then drive home. But all the people that have raced, or travelled to a foreign country can relate to what I am talking about.. the hardships, the experiences, the new friends, the memories, etc. ADDT..

The start line was filled with excitement. 200-250 racers.. energizing music, light show, drones overhead.. and then a very fit girl up on stage to warm everybody up.. I saw one girl stretching.. and thought.. how da heck does she do that.. and seeing the racers I realized that the top 30-40% are very fit.. this will be a fast race..
(now for the 50-100 milers.. you can tune out now.. this will seem very boring to you.. at 150km you start getting tired.. Sammy that might be 300 km. But for the casual 50 k’er you can possibly relate to this).

..then.. Bang.. the race started.. here we go.. just a gentle 2km up hill at an easy pace. Then 2.5-3km into it the hill started. This isn’t so bad.. a nice gentle Grouse Grind, going thru a bamboo forest.. wow this will be a fun race..
then the stairs didn’t stop for 3,000ft.. I took it easy on the down hill.. gotta save these legs for a ton more up/down..
Then another hill, and another. I think it was on the 2nd or 3rd up hill it just kept going.. and it was fully exposed to the 25-27c sunshine at this point. Then came the down hill.. it was steeper than the Grind, and no stairs, just a straight angle down. That wouldn’t be too bad.. But.. it is fall here, so this extra steep hill was covered with small hard brown leaves, at an inch think of leaves it was very slippery. Poles might have helped. But I was just sliding down grabbing trees to slow me..
oh yeah.. then under the leaves were 6-12” sticks that could cause your foot to just roll away. I was thinking.. I would love to see how the Elites go down this.

I came into the 25km aid station maybe 10-15th in the 50km and feeling not badly
Doing my math I thought 8:30-9:00 hours might be reasonable..
Then a nice lady was trying to help me.. water..?? water..?? Canada..? My daughter Canada..
Uhmmm.. how old you..???

What da heck.. why are you asking me..? I am 39.. do I look old compared to these 25 year old racers.. Maybe us white people just age quicker, and you Asians don’t age.. stop it.. and NO.. I don’t need a nap..

After leaving the aid station, and forgetting about the mean lady.. I was feeling pretty good. Passed a couple people. So maybe in 8-12 spot.
The heat was definitely climbing. In the open it would have been 25-27c, and the Eskimo started slowing.. but we started climbing up a steep, dry riverbed. Luckily the temp dropped a couple degrees..
And it almost made me want to just sit, and enjoy the cool.. but I knew the group of 3 were just behind me. The dry creek bed was not just a gentle flat meandering creek.. in rain season it would almost be waterfalls, there were many times you used trees to pull you up.. very hard to judge time and distance, but maybe this creek section was 1/2km and took 20-30 minutes. Then the creek slowly died out and it was straight up the mountain.. there was no trail, just up.. steeper than the waterfall dry creek. And again with the 1-2” of dry slippery leaves. You could not climb it without going from small tree to small tree and pulling yourself up. It just kept going up, with 3-5 false peaks.. the total climb might have been 1-1.5km, but probably took 1-1.5 hrs. The Garmin stopped registering I guess because progress up the mountain was so slow they figured I was sitting.. or worse yet.. napping..
Once on the peak it was full sun and 29c at this point I was not having fun anymore.. and it kind of just became a blur. I think I came into the 39km aid station at about 9.5 hrs. I was toast. Had to just sit in the shade and refill water, and hook my phone to my new spare battery. Plus same as previous aid station.. 1-2 minutes for photos with the 39year old. 2-3 people passed me here, but I didn’t care.. I just wanted it to be over, and hopefully in the top 23 of the 100 racers.
You 100 milers probably can’t relate.. but I wanted no food.. and was sick of the Tailwind.. just wanted an Ice cold water.. now my goal was just finish and try for a dismal 10:59.. I have to at least be able to finish a simple 50km in under 11hrs.. Crazy...
My watch was showing about 3km more than the aid station 39km, so I was constantly having to do math to figure my time.. which is probably good. It helped keep my mind off the suffering..
Now it was just to do the last of the mountains.. at about 50km, hit a peak and started going down.. FINALLY.. just down 2-3km and call it a day..
What.. up again.. we are supposed to be going down.. how do we get to the valley bottom by climbing.. ok, finally up that little fake peak and start down.. Good..
Then 2 minutes later of gentle down.. started going up.. No.. I thought Gary R was mean with his constant up.. this is even meaner.. fake peaks.
Just to get this story over with..
..there were about 5-6 of these fake peaks.. I was so Pissed off.. my watch showed 53km and we were still going up.. and must have 1,500 feet still to drop..
Then finally hit some stone steps so I figured we must be getting close.
By the way.. it was now at 11 1/2hrs. I started at 6:00am, I hadn’t brought a headlamp.. even tho I knew it got dark at 5:30pm. Who takes 11 hours for a stupid 50km race.. luckily I had a tiny little bike lamp.. maybe 20 lumens. So it helped in the pitch dark last 15 minutes.
So maybe 10 minutes down the steps in the dark, and I could finally hear the finish line..
What a CRAZY race..
Why.. why did I think this race was going to be fun..
..here are some times to give an idea. And this race had prize money so a number of fast people came, remembering there are 1.4 billion people in China. And they are starting to race. And Elites came to this race.

50km
1st place Karl was at 8:25 hours. He said toughest race he has done..
2nd - 8:41
3rd - 8:57
6th - 10:08
16th 11:41
18th 11:44 (Caballo Loco.. no kidding Crazy..)
Only 45 of 100 finished

100km race (don’t think they did the 28-30km crazy hill)

1st - 16:42
2nd 17:54
3rd 18:39
4th 21:35

30km (They definitely didn’t do the crazy 28-30km hill)

1st - 4:48
2nd 4:56
5th 6:11

I knew during and after that this was not a normal race. But when I see the top 5 times in each race, I definitely know it is a Crazy race..

But then why does any trail runner want a simple course.. for some reason we enjoy pushing our bodies to the point we question ourselves.. Question our sanity..

Would I do it again.. No..

Just kidding.. of course I would.. I would just make sure I have a nap first.. and maybe also a bit more training.. and definitely newer shoes with tread for the down hill on the slippery leaves.. probably some type of food I could eat.. maybe crispy bacon.. or French Fries (Tara B)
And learn how to say “No I am not tired” in Mandarin..

Did I mention the swag was Fantastic..
..a very nice tech running shirt.
And then all finishers also got a cool hoodie..

There is so much more I could say about the trip.. the people.. and of course the race.. But I am tired of writing.. took me longer to write this than running the race.. but there was so much involved in lining it up.. and of course the race itself..

I also want to say that China is an Amazing Country.. they get a bad rap from the Western media.
Sorry here is my little rant..

Maybe you should tune out here if you want to think we are the Good.. and China is the bad.

Everyone talks about the air pollution in China.. yes there is some. No question about it. But in the 1700-1800’s in Europe they burned Tons of coal and the air was thick.. if anyone remembers flying into LA, or any large US city in the 80’s there was a massive yellow haze over the cities and you couldn’t see a mile.. then all the Western countries wanted to clean up their air pollution so they moved their factories to China, and to reduce costs.. to increase their profits..
So Yes, China has air pollution.. But I have never seen any country move so quickly to fix problems..
5 years ago you couldn’t see half a mile in Shanghai or Beijing. Just the last week I was in Shanghai the visibility was probably 8-12km.. and Shanghai is 25 million people and it is now quiet.
All 10 million scooters are now electric.. they probably have more electric cars than N. America.
I did a 3km walk along the river in downtown Shanghai in the financial distance, and there was an amazing walking/jogging uninterrupted 3km.. And about 150-200ft wide.. with washrooms.
Vancouver and many cities are now putting in tiny bike lanes, but you can’t find a washroom. Along the river the washroom facilities were comparable to a 5 star hotel. A rest area attached, with artwork, tables and chairs.. and zero graffiti, or vandalism.
Their Transit system works fantastic.

So yes they have some issues. But they have 40 times the population, and yet a 10th of the problems in Canada or the States.
A single woman can walk in any city at 2am and be perfectly safe..

Sorry my ADDT is kicking in.. but I just get pissed off when people talk about China, and they don’t know the facts..
..can you imagine a city like Vancouver has 2,500 to 4,000 homeless.. China has 40 times the population and you don’t notice the homeless or panhandles..

Canada has 9% of the worlds fresh water, and we can’t provide clean drinking water to a majority of the Aboriginal communities..

Shanghai, and possibly other major cities just eliminated all hotel single use plastics.. and in Canada our leaders family “umm, ummm, we use those plastic, no, no, those juice box paper things”

There seems to be daily shootings..
..schools and churches throughout the States are like a shooting arcade..

So yes China has some minor problems.. but can you imagine the mess we would be in if we had 40 times the population..

That’s my rant.. I am sorry if I upset anyone.. it can probably be blamed on the lack of blood going to my brain after running 11.5 hours in 25-29c and up and down 4,800 metres.. Maybe I should have had a nap..
 

Thanks, and take care everyone,