The Magnificent Merapoh Trail 2019 (70km)
The Magnificent Merapoh Trail ("TMMT") 2019 was held on 23th Aug. This run was suppose to be my warm-up race for TMBT 2019, so I planned to go at a relax pace. Most runners expected the run to be easy due to its flat course profile, but rain and mud had messed up their life.
Organizer's Distance & elevation gain: 70km, with 1,855m elevation gain
My recorded Distance & elevation gain: 74km, with 1,060m elevation gain
Cut off Time: 15 hours (It took me 14hours 55minutes to complete it. I was stuck in the trail traffic jam for 1 hour sharp)
Weather: Drizzling and clouded
Finishing rate: 53%
The sky was drizzling at 4am, I dressed my windbreaker and waited under the rain before the starting line. After flag off, everyone was fast in the first 10km, some jogged uphill too. I adhered to my strategy, only jog on downhill and walk on flat and uphill.
We were supposed to cross a river at 17km, but the river water was raging due to rain. Thus runners were required to detour and cross the river one-by-one on a 6 meter long tree trunk instead. I wasted exactly one hour on this bottle neck.
The terrain for the first half was supposed to be very run-able, unfortunately it was so muddy that everyone walked like a toddler. Surprisingly I didn't fall even once, it could be because I was wearing a hiking shoe (instead of trail running shoe), or maybe because I was using hiking poles, or maybe I am accustomed to muddy terrain. I often overtook by runners when I march on flat roads, and I will overtake them on muddy terrains and downhills.
After overtaking more and more runners, I was swallowed by pride and start to run on muddy downhills. I celebrated in my heart "Ahaha, this is really my thing!!". Until one point I lost control on a downhill slope and dashed uncontrolled to the wall on right hand side. I steered my body hard to the left but it was still going straight to the right, weird sensation! Fortunately, I managed to maneuver myself to the left by using hiking sticks and slowed down. I toned down myself after that.
25km onwards it was mostly road terrain, no special strategy here except to march forward steadily. Some runners claimed that the Race Director ("RD") would add one hour to the COT to compensate for the time lost in earlier traffic jam. But what if he doesn't? So I decided to play safe and re-adjusted my pace according to the original COT. Doing calculation while running made me felt like a mathematician who do his math paper under the influence.
In the end, I crossed the finishing line with just 7 minutes before the COT. Actual distance covered by my watch was 74km+, every runner gets different figure on their watches. Just my guess, the additional distance was "compensation" from the RD for taking out two river crossing sections.
Remarks:
1. The organizer manage to re-route the run beautifully despite last minute detour. 40% of the route were re-positioned, but all markers were clearly placed. Well done.
2. The run covered some exotic caves with archaeological materials inside.
3. Many many runners took short cut. After the final check point, we were required to run a 5km long route and U-turn back, 10km in total. Some runners were told that no crew is recording the attendance at the u-turn point, so they just cheated and turned back. That would cut short their mileage up to 10km distance! (My opinion is, the organizer could have place a crew there to record the bib number, just pretend to record even if you don't plan to check it. Alternatively, give each runner a colored rubber band at the u-turn point will do too)
Out of 182 runners, only 97 runners made it back to the finishing line within COT. And I estimate that at least 30 out of the 97 finishers cheated.
Race location: 4 hours+ away from Kuala Lumpur. The race start and end in SMK Merapoh.
Food and water supply: Monotone foods (e.g. watermelon and banana)
Organizer's crews: Some CP crews were not clear about the race details, such as route direction etc.
Route marking: Decent route marking, despite last minute re-route.
Difficulty: 3 out of 10 (from the scale of 0 to 10, where 10 as the toughest)
Result: Checkpointasia
Conclusion:
- Extra distance and unexpected delay in early stage (one hour, for my case) caused many people failed to meet the cut off time.
- Runners would need shoe with good grip for the muddy terrain. Plenty of runners could not complete in time due to the mud.
- This is a fast pace course, I barely completed it with fast walking and some jogs.
#TMMT #TMMT2019
Race Information:
My recorded Distance & elevation gain: 74km, with 1,060m elevation gain
Cut off Time: 15 hours (It took me 14hours 55minutes to complete it. I was stuck in the trail traffic jam for 1 hour sharp)
Weather: Drizzling and clouded
Finishing rate: 53%
My race report (extracted from my Facebook):
This 70km ultra marathon was supposed to be my warm-up run for TMBT in Sept 2019, it ended up more challenging than I've expected.
The sky was drizzling at 4am, I dressed my windbreaker and waited under the rain before the starting line. After flag off, everyone was fast in the first 10km, some jogged uphill too. I adhered to my strategy, only jog on downhill and walk on flat and uphill.
We were supposed to cross a river at 17km, but the river water was raging due to rain. Thus runners were required to detour and cross the river one-by-one on a 6 meter long tree trunk instead. I wasted exactly one hour on this bottle neck.
The terrain for the first half was supposed to be very run-able, unfortunately it was so muddy that everyone walked like a toddler. Surprisingly I didn't fall even once, it could be because I was wearing a hiking shoe (instead of trail running shoe), or maybe because I was using hiking poles, or maybe I am accustomed to muddy terrain. I often overtook by runners when I march on flat roads, and I will overtake them on muddy terrains and downhills.
After overtaking more and more runners, I was swallowed by pride and start to run on muddy downhills. I celebrated in my heart "Ahaha, this is really my thing!!". Until one point I lost control on a downhill slope and dashed uncontrolled to the wall on right hand side. I steered my body hard to the left but it was still going straight to the right, weird sensation! Fortunately, I managed to maneuver myself to the left by using hiking sticks and slowed down. I toned down myself after that.
25km onwards it was mostly road terrain, no special strategy here except to march forward steadily. Some runners claimed that the Race Director ("RD") would add one hour to the COT to compensate for the time lost in earlier traffic jam. But what if he doesn't? So I decided to play safe and re-adjusted my pace according to the original COT. Doing calculation while running made me felt like a mathematician who do his math paper under the influence.
In the end, I crossed the finishing line with just 7 minutes before the COT. Actual distance covered by my watch was 74km+, every runner gets different figure on their watches. Just my guess, the additional distance was "compensation" from the RD for taking out two river crossing sections.
Remarks:
1. The organizer manage to re-route the run beautifully despite last minute detour. 40% of the route were re-positioned, but all markers were clearly placed. Well done.
2. The run covered some exotic caves with archaeological materials inside.
3. Many many runners took short cut. After the final check point, we were required to run a 5km long route and U-turn back, 10km in total. Some runners were told that no crew is recording the attendance at the u-turn point, so they just cheated and turned back. That would cut short their mileage up to 10km distance! (My opinion is, the organizer could have place a crew there to record the bib number, just pretend to record even if you don't plan to check it. Alternatively, give each runner a colored rubber band at the u-turn point will do too)
Out of 182 runners, only 97 runners made it back to the finishing line within COT. And I estimate that at least 30 out of the 97 finishers cheated.
Verdict:
Race location: 4 hours+ away from Kuala Lumpur. The race start and end in SMK Merapoh.
Food and water supply: Monotone foods (e.g. watermelon and banana)
Organizer's crews: Some CP crews were not clear about the race details, such as route direction etc.
Route marking: Decent route marking, despite last minute re-route.
Difficulty: 3 out of 10 (from the scale of 0 to 10, where 10 as the toughest)
Result: Checkpointasia
Conclusion:
- Extra distance and unexpected delay in early stage (one hour, for my case) caused many people failed to meet the cut off time.
- Runners would need shoe with good grip for the muddy terrain. Plenty of runners could not complete in time due to the mud.
- This is a fast pace course, I barely completed it with fast walking and some jogs.
Plenty of small limestone hill and caves around.
Happily crossing the finishing line with muddy legs.
#TMMT #TMMT2019
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