The Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge (HK4TUC) is a 298km (185mi) run along Hong Kong’s four long-distance trails. The course rises more than 14,500m in elevation – that’s 1.6x the height of Mt. Everest. This year, on my third attempt, I finally completed the challenge in 70 hours and 45 minutes. I was a “survivor” because I completed the race in less than 72 hours; the fastest “finishers” complete it in less than 60 hours. The challenge is held each year over Chinese New Year; despite being low key, solo (no companions on the trail), and self-supported (carry all your food and supplies), it has become a highlight for the running community.
A life-long goal
This challenge is particularly special to me because I was born and raised in Hong Kong. I grew up hiking portions of the trails with my family and on school camping trips. I followed the challenge for a few years before attempting it myself. In 2017, I was a business analyst with McKinsey, based in London and staffed in Sierra Leone, and I remember desperately trying to find a signal in the middle of nowhere so I could see the progress the runners were making in that year’s edition.
Training
I’ve run ultramarathons since 2013. I started building on that experience to train for the HK4TUC. In my first two attempts I didn’t finish. The first time, in 2018, I left McKinsey about eight months prior to go to Colombia Law School. I think I was in denial about how fit I needed to be; I didn’t use data to inform my training or stick to a rigid training schedule. In 2019, I was much better prepared physically, but not mentally. I struggled to eat and eventually had to stop.
Shortly after I returned to McKinsey as an associate in 2019, I decided to make my third attempt in 2020. Juggling consulting and training for an event like HK4TUC was hard; there were weeks where my coach had to dial back my training because I was working late and sleep took priority over running. But I was a happier person and a more valuable team member having done my morning run. A short run was better than none.
The final stretch
I used Take Time, a program that allows colleagues to take up to an additional 10 weeks of unpaid leave during the year. I used it to come back to Hong Kong in November for two weeks of heavy training, running about 350km. Two weeks later, I took an even bigger break: combining four weeks of Take Time with two weeks of regular holiday to spend six weeks at home from Christmas through Chinese New Year. It was a way for me to make sure I got some critical training, while taking time to relax and spend time with friends and family before the race.
The secret ingredient
It means a lot that my colleagues know about this big hobby of mine. My teams lay out norms for our working style preferences and ideal lifestyles. We check in weekly to see how well we are meeting those needs. I like knowing the whole team is working to support each other and that I don’t have to manage my goals on my own. My colleagues shared in my celebration after I completed the HK4TUC, and the most supportive among them even followed my tracker dot during the event.
Learning from running
Running ultras has influenced how I work. To start, I value balance. Keeping a log of my runs and how I feel during them means I am very aware of the effects of too little sleep or not enough time with friends on my endurance and feelings while I run. Balance isn’t something to which I pay lip service; it has become non-negotiable.
This translates to my work: staying calm under pressure, thinking creatively and critically when deriving insights from data, and being a source of energy for the people around me.
Lastly, I am a planner, but running has taught me to make plans B and C, and how to problem-solve with the overall goal in mind. With runs longer than 100km, I create a pace plan to schedule how long I’ll spend on each section, breaking my runs into manageable portions. Rather than thinking “I’ve got 70km to go”, I think “I’m 20 minutes away from the next refill stop.” I am very clear with myself and with my family about my goals for each race, e.g., to finish, to finish in a certain time. In consultant speak, I define what success looks like. If I start to fall off pace or if the weather turns bad, I work toward the next goal. For example, my goal for the 2020 HK4TUC was to finish in 65-70 hours. When I took the wrong ferry to go to the fourth trail and ended up on the wrong island, I was far enough ahead of the pace chart that I wasn’t worried. I just looked to see if there was another ferry I could take (and was prepared to hire a speedboat if not!). This translates back to consulting; I break my six-month project into monthly activities and outputs and have back up plans for unavailable data, unavoidable delays, etc.
Looking to the future
I am still learning to balance running and working. Inevitably there are weeks when running takes a backseat, but I’m so hopeful about maintaining this balance that I signed up for the HK4TUC in its 10th anniversary in 2021.
