UTMF Trilogy (Pre-Race)

“Only from the heart you can touch the sky” – Rumi.

Our lucky number for UTMF – 887 & 865.
Thanks PEKA for your support, “Save Our Rainforest”

 

UTMF 101

Ultra-Trail Mt.Fuji (UTMF) is an official sister race to Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB). While UTMB was established in 2003, the UTMF is just recently founded in 2012 by Tsuyoshi Kaburaki, an accomplished world class Japanese Ultra Trail Runner.

This year, 2014 is only the 3^rd edition of this prestigious ultra-trail race in Asia. A quick recap on distances and elevation of UTMF since 2012.

2012: Distance – 156km, Elevation gain – 8,540 meters, 48 hours cut-off.
(Trekking poles allowed).

2013: Distance – 161km, Elevation gain – 9,164 meters, 46 hours cut-off.
(Trekking poles allowed).

2014: Distance – 169km, Elevation gain - 9,500 meters. 46 hours cut-off.
(Trekking poles NOT allowed).

So far, we only had two Malaysian finisher in the history of UTMF. Seow Kong and Shine Teh completed this gruelling Ultra race in 2012, while last year (2013) we had zero Malaysian finisher. We hope to change that statistic this year at UTMF.

I arrived at Haneda Airport, Tokyo on Tuesday night around 10:30pm. Decided to sleep at the airport before taking the first bus to Lake Kawaguchi at 6:55am next morning.

Me and the rest of team Malaysian stayed at K’s House Lake Kawaguchi, I would say the best hostel so far in terms of cleanliness and comfy (comparing my stay at Hostels around the world – Berlin, Hong Kong, Leadville, Singapore etc).

Bus service from Haneda to Lake Kawaguchi & Ks House.

I guess I’m lucky because my time in Japan was greeted with beautiful cherry blossom, my first ever trip to Japan for UTMF and its blooming Sakura. Life is beautiful when you travel.

 

Morning run around Lake Kawaguchi with beautiful Cherry Blossom all around the lake.

The rest of Team Malaysia arrived a day later (Thursday), I took the opportunity to have my morning run around the beautiful Lake Kawaguchi before checking the race site and expo. Came across Joe Grant and Japanese team Buff running on the bridge. Said hi to him when we passed each other, he replied and had kinda surprise look, and maybe he didn’t expected someone would recognise him here.

As I reached the race site, someone very familiar just finished his morning run. A group of HK runners quickly took the opportunity to take photos with Sébastien Chaigneau– world class Ultra runner and defending champion of Hardrock 100.

I had a chat with his wife at the side and his son was on the bicycle. Then, Seb came over to us. Only then I asked Seb’s missus to take my photo with him. Nice strategy Raymau, Seb is very humble guy and we talk a bit about his race. I was a bit concerned, especially after he DNF UTMB and Transgrancanaria.

“How are you Seb, are you ok? (for this race)”, I asked Seb. He smiled and said he’s ok now. Unfortunately during this year UTMF’s Seb pulled out after running half of the course, he might still not recovered from his previous race – especially Hardrock 100, that’s is the toughest Ultra race in America (USA).

I met more familiar runners after that at UTMF race site, Nuria Picas, Joe Grant, Nick Clark & Ryan Sandes (after the race). No Tony Krupicka though, he came to UTMF but last minutes injury ruled him out of the race.

 

With Nuria Picas (UTMF 2014 Women Champion), Joe Grant, Nick Clark, Seb and Ryan Sandes.

UTMF is a world class Ultra-Trail event, this year it’s getting bigger than previous year especially when it’s in the list of the Ultra-Trail World Tour (UTWT). More international elite runners are joining UTMF this year.

When Bud finally arrived, we went for mandatory gear check and bib pick up after a nice lunch at nearby Pakistan restaurant. Can you say Roti Naan…

They really check your mandatory gear thoroughly, course map, mobile phone, collapsible cup, water (min 1 liter), two lights/lamps with extra batteries, portable toilet, warm long sleeve t.shirt, warm running pant, warm gloves, beanie (buff is not acceptable), water proof jacket, waterproof pant, first aid kit.

I had printed the wrong map – the overall map! Oh No!!

They wanted me to show the details map of the course (all 18 of them), finally they passed me after I downloaded the maps into my smart phone (the maps are available at the UTMF website).

Finally the blue wrist band is tied up on my right wrist, in other words – Fuji owned my ass now till Sunday. My bag weight a tonne now, I have no idea how to run with this heavy back tomorrow (Friday).

 

Mandatory gear check

 

UTMF 2014 race expo

According to past participant, the race expo it’s three times bigger than last year. You can get all your gears and gels here, appropriately for last minute gears shopping. I was interested in only one thing – the portable toilet (mandatory gear).

The night before the race I received many good luck massages and encouragements from my friends around the world. Thanks peeps that meant a lot to me. But my most heartfelt thanks goes to my friends from Thailand, Pok and K-San. They made a special tribute for me and my UTMF race. Who knows I got some followers and fans in Thailand.

TBC

UTMF Trilogy (Training Days)

“Love the DNF, you will realise it’s the DNF that makes you tough as nails” – Candice Burt.

13 is unlucky number.

I’m not superstitious but 2013 was a bad year for me, an unlucky 13.

I had triple DNF last year – Leadville100, Powerman Dualthon and finally TNF100 Hong Kong.

On the cold and windy peak of Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong (highest peak in HK, 957m), my year ended with me holding on to nothing but empty dreams. Palm faced and I found myself in a dark place.

I remembered reading on Candice’s blog about DNF – “Love the DNF. You were on such a good streak. You were so hardcore. Never a DNF in 8 years! You think that makes you an ultrarunning badass? Think again. Once you've been deflowered you will realize it's the DNF that makes you tough as nails”. Definitely right, DNF is there to teach you a lesson, to humble you before you become better person, stronger individual.

To get back up, took a lot of courage, took a lot of effort, and took a lot of everything from me. If you been through this in life, you can relate what I’m talking about here.

To get back to running and training after TNF Hong Kong was a huge mental challenge, I had to plead, beg and bargain with myself to start training for UTMF which I registered earlier last October.

I’m just a guy who doesn’t care less about what peeps said, focus on my dream and strategies on how to accomplish it. Once these peeps get tired, they will eventually shut up. I couldn’t be bothered enough to care about negatives talk and bad comments, a waste of my time really.

On top of my disappointed year, I found myself with knee injury. It’s been plaguing me since TNF SG 2011. The injury sort of comes and goes, after Leadville the injury became more obvious. I had to find out what’s going on with my knees – I needed professional medical opinion and I needed the best.

So I turned to Dr. Nahar, he is the Head of Sport Science Clinic at PPUM, I’ve been consulting with him on a monthly basis. After extensive testing, he concluded that I am suffering from OA (Osteoarthritis) - degenerative arthritis or degenerative joint disease. Now I know! Luckily my OA is at stage 1. Under his care, I was given prescription set of exercises and medicine. The progress has been slow, but it’s a forward progress nevertheless.

I set myself a 26 weeks training plan for UTMF, which included races such as TNF HK, WaterGate Ultra and TNF Thailand 2014. Most weekends I will be training at mount Nuang, which is the core to my UTMF training plan. I cannot missed those weekend Nuang training – I had to make sure of that.

As the days gone by and the April getting closer, I found myself at wit end trying to balance work and training. Especially, when I needed to travel outstation - my training would be screwed! Although some training weeks I did not managed to clock the minimum mileage, I make sure that the weekly Nuang training is always on track. I really banking on my Nuang training to take me to the UTMF finish line, I’m leaning towards quality of training rather than quantity nowadays. For mountain trail races, these three things are the most crucial in your training – mileage, elevation gain and time on feet.

Havoc – the only fitting description. I wish it could be better training mileage, but we are not elite athlete – we all have work and family to balance with.

I wish I could have more time to train as time flies by, somehow I found myself glancing the calendar and nearing to UTMF. I did more cycling hours to complement my UTMF training, especially when I finally gotten a proper bike trainer at home. I was stronger going uphill at Nuang after these cycling session, positive benefits reap from the trainer.

The final month or so, Khairul Anuar aka Tony joined me at the weekly training at Nuang, at first he was struggling to cope. He almost gave up halfway to the summit – wanted to go back at Camp Pacat at the first session. He encourage him and told him that you needed this Nuang sessions to survive UTMF – this is necessary pains my friend. He agreed and the coming weeks he was doing much better. Once we tried to simulate running UTMF at Night, we started at 3 am for our Pangsun-Nuang Summit-Pangsun training. We had everything, head lamp, rain jacket, food, water etc. I found my Achilles heel that day, I was sleepy during those dark session, I had to lie down at Camp Pacat and sleep for about 15 minutes before I could operate normally. Tony stayed with me and act as guardian when I took my power nap – thanks Tony.

In between the trainings, I had taken few VO2 max tests, I need the knowledge on my physical abilities, boundaries and where my lungs could take me further. Yes, I’ve gone to the dark side – to the Sport Science of running. Thanks to PPUM and ISN for these tests, now I know what pace that I should be doing during training, racing etc.

VO2 max test at PPUM and ISN (bottom)

 

Few days before I depart for Japan, Izham (Dietician) from ISN helped me in formulating Nutricient Strategy for UTMF. Thanks a million Izham, this is the first time I’m doing it – a lot of my races started strong in the past, but faded in the later part due to failure to pay attention to the importance of nutricient. This time I hope it would be a different outcome, UTMF is a very big event and a five stars event in my book. To even finish UTMF would be a dream come true for me, especially on the first attempt.

 

Now the first smart thing I did for this race was taper properly, two weeks before the race I was reducing my mileage; tapering period is the hardest thing for me – temptation for that long run, especially that final week without Nuang training.

Nuang Summit (1493 meters) on different days and runners.

 

Running for a cause “Save Our Rainforest”

I will run my first UTMF with a cause "Save Our Rainforest". I’m honoured to be the voice of PEKA (Pertubuhan Pelindung Khazanah Alam Malaysia) and represent them in Japan and promote awareness on the PEKA’s initiative “Save Our Rainforest”.

PEKA MALAYSIA is an NGO which was formed to stop the destruction of natural resources, to defend the rights of environment and be the voice of nature. We aim to create awareness about nature, sound health, preservation and the sustenance of the environment. PEKA means sensitive in “Malay” language and is rightly suitable towards its course.

With collaboration between my NGO (Inspirasi Wawasan) and PEKA, I hope this will be a great start for many more green initiatives in the future.

Thank you Puan Sri Shariffa Sabrina Syed Akil and PEKA for your trust. I will run my best to complete this gruelling race in my first UTMF attempt.

TBC

UTMF 2014–Hall of Fame

Last Sunday i finally completed my first 100 mile trail race (105 mile to be exact) at the prestigious Ultra-Trail Mt.Fuji (UTMF).

It was the most epic race to date, a life time of unforgettable experiences running the most beautiful trail around the majestic Mt. Fuji.

 

Congratulations also in order for the rest of Team Malaysia, who completed this gruesomely magnificent race.

Bahtiar Salamon

Khairul Anuar Abdul Rahim

Yim Heng Fatt

In addition, congratulations also to STY Malaysian finisher (91.5km)

• Duncan Archibald (Male)
• Tan Lee Lee (Female)

Into the Light (Video)

Salomon Running TV Season 3 Episode 8 (Final Episode)

Emelie Forsberg only emerged onto the trail running scene in 2012. In just a couple of years she has established herself as one of best trail runners in the world.

In the final episode of Season 03 we head up north, above the Arctic Circle, to Emelie's home in Northern Norway as she emerges from the darkness of winter... Into the Light.