Trail Mix | Coronavirus crisis and Hong Kong protests force cancellation of dozens of trail races, but defiant runners keep turning up for unofficial events
- Trail races might be cancelled, but runners keep turning up after Oxfam Trailwalker sets community precedent
The 2019-20 trail running season in Hong Kong has been one of the most disrupted season in recent history, with major protests and a fast-spreading epidemic upending many a runner’s racing schedule.
Last November saw the cancellation of the Oxfam Trailwalker 100km race after large-scale protests and days-long sieges at multiple universities led to major traffic disruptions. While the mountain trails were serene enough, the road blockages were a logistical nightmare. Several hundred competitors showed up on race day anyway, running Hong Kong’s first unofficial Oxam Trailwalker.
Running returned to normal in January. At least, until the full extent of the novel coronavirus outbreak became clear.
Now, as the number of confirmed cases in China has soared to 74,185 and 2,004 deaths as of February 19, and with 62 confirmed cases and two deaths in Hong Kong, almost all trail running races in the city have been put on hold. It’s not that the trails are particularly risky places to be; in fact, being out in the open air will most definitely do everyone some good.
And unlike the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon (also cancelled), which would have seen tens of thousands of runners squeezing through a poorly ventilated tunnel, trail running races are rarely as densely packed. But the biggest obstacle to hosting races now is the scaling-down of many non-essential government services, including the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD), which manages many of the parks that race organisers use as starting points.
The Fast 50 Ultra races ran into this problem. Scheduled for early March, organisers Jeremy Ritcey and Valerie Lagarde, of the Trail Hub, had to scrap the event. Writing to participants, they noted that the venue originally slated for the start and finish points would be closed at least until the end of April, and that they had “trouble communicating effectively with other government departments to get gates opened to access checkpoints”.
