Race Review Xterra Asia Pacific Trail-running Championships
EVENT. NAME: Xterra Asia Pacific Trail-running Championships. 21 km
VENUE: Langkawi
DATE: 30 April 2017 Time: 07:15 [07:13]
Headline Event Owners: Xterra Malaysia
Information requested but no response.
Event Organising Company:
Race Director:
Timing company:
Registration company: justonlineregistration.com
PLEASE NOTE: This review is based on my personal observations and experience of the event and is intended to be helpful to other runners for their future event selection and also to aid the organisers by giving a honest and unbiased opinion of both the good and the not so good elements as I found them. Where, on the rare occasion I have used information other than my own it will be clearly stated as such and will have been from a trusted source and corroborated by others.
THE EVENT
EVENT SCORE CARD SUMMARY
PRE-RACE.
Entry and information:
Initial event information and updates: The initial information was very explicit but updates were infrequent and rather vague. 7/10.
Contact: Facebook, web-site, phone and e-mail were all available but the media sites were quite unresponsive. 6/10.
Categories: Were as good as it gets with Male/female each with junior, open and ten-year age groups. 10/10.
Value of entry: Priced at RM 168, on the face of it, it could seem a little expensive, but, overall I found it to be great value as there were two dinners, the pre-event carb loading and meet the pros dinner and the awards dinner included in addition to the usual event and finishers shirts, goodies bag, medals for all finishers and trophies for the first three in each age group. 20/20.
Race registration and kit collection: Collection point, ease of collection: At the venue, the day prior to the event. Very smoothly run. With the out of the way venue there were very few really local runners so just about everyone would have been staying overnight on the island but even so a postal delivery service could have saved some from additional travelling.17/20.
60/70
Race site Facilities:
Venue, space and amenities: The venue was good but very limited, there was no area to warm up unless you were happy to do so either on the road or in very small circles at the start. There was water available. 6/10.
Toilet facilities: The facilities were excellent but unfortunately, they were back at the hotel, an eight-hundred metre round trip, so anyone needing the quick dash to the loo just before the gun need to be a sprinter of the Bolt variety 7/10.
Start area: There were staff around but there was no one who could give much in the way of information regarding the course. 5/10.
Parking and transport: No transport was laid on and the parking was at the hotel car park which was pretty well full the night before, but, I didn’t hear anyone complaining that they could not get a parking spot. There were alternative pay parking spots close by. 7/10.
25/40 85/110
Care of Competitors:
Starting time, briefing and control: Everything started on time.
I can only surmise that the person who gave the pre-race briefing was not a runner and had never seen the course, as the information he gave out was at best misleading at worst inept. I did not speak to a single full course runner that did not go wrong or had to turn back to check their route, not because the course was badly marked but because we were only given some of the information that we needed [details are in the Course management section] 4/10.
Medical facilities. Start/finish and on course: There was just one medic, stationed at the finish area. He dealt well with the minor bumps, twists and scrapes, but, there was nothing to deal with anything out on the course nor had there been a major accident. 8/20.
12/30 97/140
THE RACE.
Organisation:
Course management: Traffic control on the road sections were good.
No kit inspection and no emergency number was given. Signage throughout the run course was good, BUT, only if we had have been told how it worked! At the briefing we were told to follow the Blue arrows and Red tape. For around half the course that worked perfectly, but then we reached the upper ridge, part of the previous day’s bike course, the tape changed to yellow. It was here where nine of the first ten finishers [all spoken to] turned back to check their route. So, we were now following Yellow tape with the occasional Blue arrow. Close to the bottom of the descent we joined the eleven-kilometre course to find we were now marked with Red tape and Red arrows. None of this would have been a problem had we been given the correct information at the briefing. 7/30.
Course design and enjoyment factor: Excellent - High – Med – Low. (subjective) The mix of good old fashioned cross country style running, real forest trails, steep inclines and very technical descents were what made this event, however, the long road sections and the constant worry at the top of not knowing if you were on the correct trail stops this from being an exceptional course for me 15/20.
Marshaling: A generally cheerful bunch who tried their very best but there were insufficient marshals and some didn’t seem to have much of a clue as to what they were supposed to be doing. There seemed to have been very little in the way of training. 9/15.
Feed stations: The number was excellent, staffing was sufficient and stocking, when I went through, seemed to be more than okay.14/15.
45/80 142/220
POST RACE.
Finish line: Easy and cheerful but the choice of food and hydration was not good, just fruit and water. 6/10.
Resting and cool down areas: Good – Sufficient – Lacking. The beach, sea and the hotel loungers were available 6/10.
Finishing information: Top placings posting board? No, but you were able to check your age group and overall position as you crossed the line. Adele, the MC, did a brilliant job of keeping us entertained and informed. It was great to hear her calling in individual runners and encouraging their last effort to the line.
The prize ceremony was simply enjoyable and performed just about on schedule at a time that did not excluded the greater majority of runners but also did not mean that the winners were waiting around for an unacceptable amount of time. 8/10.
20/30 162/250
AFTER EVENT
Results: Top three in each category posted in no time at all. Full results, age grouped inside forty-eight hours. 20/20.
Post event communication: Good – Limited – None. Just a few photographs. It would seem the norm that organisers have nothing to say after their event is over, it’s a pity, I for one would love to hear what their view of the proceedings were. 2/10.
22/30 Grand Total 184/280 giving an overall score for this event of 65.7%
COMMENTS: Not a great score, let down by one major cock-up and lots of minor bits. All of which, with the will and commitment, can be easily fixed to create a great event.
Would I return to this event: No – Unlikely – Possibly – Yes. Am I just a glutton for punishment or do I really believe that with the right man in the right place this could still be one of Malaysia’s premiere trail running events?
Happy Running
When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
Photographs curtesy of: Capt. Black [AJ Johan], Amrul Gan, Delia ‘Kodak’ Willis.
My personal race.
2:42:57 [21Kms]
1st Veteran 60 plus. 5th Overall.
How often do I write that my race was a race of two halves? Well, this one wasn’t, it was a race of three thirds.
Having run the event the previous year on what I was informed was the same course I knew exactly what to expect and had set myself a solid target time of three-hours, eighteen-minutes better than last year. I was advised when we arrived that the course was to be reversed this year but no matter that changed very little in the overall aspect of the run. Game on.
Once settled into our room we set off to meet up with other competitors, both from the trail run and the triathlon. That wasn’t difficult, there they were all congregated around the Xterra notice boards in the hotel lobby. Everything laid out with schedules and course maps. Ah yes, the course map, not much like I remember it from last year. Not really surprising as it was in fact totally different. I guess it was my own fault as I didn’t even look at the course map on line once I was told it would be the same as last year. But once I tracked down ‘he who knew’ I was told that what was meant by it will be the same as last year was that the format would be the same in that the trail run would be a loop taking in the major part of the bike course, which of course was entirely different to last years. So there went my only advantage, course knowledge. I was now in the same boat as everyone else blindly following arrows and flags.
Sunday morning, dark and humid, several hundred eager participants milling around the start area awaiting the gun.
The first third: Variations on a running theme.
Off we went, after a short while picking my way through some slower starters I settled into a comfortable pace within the top ten or so.
A steady long uphill road section, so different to last year when we started along the beach, up the river and directly into the trail-head, to eventually turn into road side forest and down a track leading into the cross-country section. A large wet and muddy field with a brilliant, twisting and turning, course taped out across it. It took me back to my school cross-country days all those years ago, I felt that I was now running like a young ‘en again! Back out on the far side of the field into the forest and out on another track leading to another, thankfully shorter,
road section to the main trail-head under the cable-cars.
With the feel of mother earth under my feet the ever upward trail through dense forest was so refreshing after all that tarmac.
The second third: Over the top and down.
At last the trail leveled out along a mid-mountain ridge, varying from flat to slightly down-hill through some magnificent pristine forest. It was at this point the trail run joined the previous day’s very technical bike course and that unfortunately is where things began to go wrong, very wrong. The red ribbon-flags that we had been told to follow just disappeared, well actually turned to yellow, and no sign of any blue arrows. I stopped and surveyed the trail, not finding an alternative I pushed on hesitantly but I turned back after six-hundred metres as I wasn’t absolutely sure that I was on the correct track. On my return journey I picked up four more runners, all as confused as I was, eventually a fifth runner, who had cycled the route the day previously, confirmed we were on the correct course. Back off in the right direction again. It turned out that after just eight-hundred metres there it was, the next, first on the yellow section, blue arrow. So we were now following yellow tape and the occasional blue arrow. Two of us gradually pulled away from the other runners and we happily shared the lead through the next few kilometres along the ridge. As we reached the end of the ridge the trail narrowed and my running partner, Gina, took the lead as we pitched into the very steep descent. After just a few hundred metres of building speed came the real down, crash!!!
I just toe tapped a root and that was me, face planted into the trail, not knowing if I was on my head or my heels, blood running down my face and dripping off my nose. Thankfully I missed all the rocks and chose the softer stuff. Gina came to a stop as quickly as she could and started on her way back to me, but as I only felt shook-up rather than broken, I told her to push on and I would see her at the finish.
Shortly after I was joined by the next three runners who kindly stopped, cleaned my face up as best they could before I could persuade them that I was okay and that they should continue. Trail runners, well runners in general, are a great breed of people.
According to my Garmin I hit the deck at quite a speed, and stayed there for almost five-minutes, composing myself and searching for my running glasses, of which I only found the one arm that was still behind my right ear.
The third third: The Recovery Run
Dusted down, recomposed and now happily continuing my run and to my, and their, great surprise catching and passing the three runners that had taken care of me. I think they were more surprised than I was. I was just thankful that I wasn’t badly hurt and was now thoroughly enjoying the down-hill towards the finish, that is until, at a sharp left turn and drop to an intersection, where, two terrified young ladies, they looked somewhere between twelve and fifteen, asked what distance I was running, I replied "twenty-one", they smiled, nervously. “So which way” I asked, they then gestured me left onto the trail now marked with red arrows?
I was now overtaking people left, right and centre but it seemed that they were all competing in the eleven-kilometre race. At one point I stopped and almost turned back to ensure that they had put me on the correct course, but something in the back of my mind remembered another competitor saying that we finished up on the short course for the last couple of kilometres so, thankfully, I pushed on to the finish where a rather worried pit-crew and medic awaited my arrival. I was just so pleased with my run, they were just so pleased that I made it back.
To my great surprise I had made it home in fifth place overall, all in all a very pleasing result for me.
Winning my age-group of sixty plus was just a matter of finishing so no surprise there, but, what did come as a major surprise was that my determination and refusal to give up has earned me qualification to the Xterra Worlds Championships in Maui.
