Trail Mix | How Olympic hopeful Wong smashed her marathon personal best with altitude, attitude and weight training
- The Hong Kong runner spends time in Yunnan to benefit from the altitude, and spends far more time in the gym getting stronger
When Natasha Wong Tsz-yan crossed the finish line at the Berlin Marathon on September 29, she promptly broke into tears. “Finally,” she thought. “I could keep the pace and complete the race on pace.”
She said training at altitude, dedicating more time to strength training and training on her own to improve her mental strength were all factors in the improvement.
Wong, 24, completely shattered her personal best of two hours, 49 minutes and 54 seconds, set nearly two years ago at the Asian Marathon Championships. And it was no ordinary smashing. She lowered her time by eight whole minutes, to 2:41:54.
The result was a long time in the making, a vindication of her past couple years of relentless training while struggling with various injuries. Her performances at the 2018 and 2019 Hong Kong Standard Chartered Marathon were not ideal, some five to six minutes off her fastest time. She knew she had more in her. But in Berlin – her sixth marathon since diving into the distance in 2017 – things finally clicked. And suddenly, the distant dream of one day running for Hong Kong at the Olympics appeared to be feasibly within reach.
“It was really freaky,” Wong said. She had aimed for something in the vicinity of 2:47. Add to that a head cold and sore throat she caught while running her final few sessions rainy Berlin, and she had been grateful to even stand at the start line that Sunday feeling well enough to run the race.
