‘The North Face – Flight’ and ‘People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’ Battle at Trailwalker

Asia Pacific Adventure / 21.11.2011

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) edged out The North Face – Flight team in one of the closest finishes ever in OXFAM Trailwalker, Hong Kong's legendary 100km footrace. The event, celebrating its 30th year anniversary, saw 4,800 people line up to attempt to finish the incredibly difficult course across Hong Kong's New Territories. The race requires a team of four to climb over countless steep peaks, taking in a total of 14,000 ft. of elevation gain before finishing with a knee-jarring 1+ hour downhill road run and another 10 km on single-track trail. Hong Kong's tropical climate always adds to the challenge, with this year's extremely high humidity level slowing down finish times and creating one of the most difficult races in the last decade.

The North Face sponsored an impressive international team which included world-class Japanese ultra trail runner Tsuyoshi Kaburaki and 3 members of the Asia-based adventure sports team, Champion System Adventure, including: top local Chinese trail runner and past Trailwalker champion, Stone Tsang, American adventure racer Ryan S. Blair, and former professional Australian cyclist turned multi-sport athlete, Klayten Smith.

For the PLA, Trailwalker is the only race each year they join and involves an extremely focused training and selection effort that ends with the strongest eight soldiers forming two teams for the competition. They have been Trailwalker champions since they entered the race 3 years ago with their best time amazingly over 45 minutes faster than the legendary international Ultra runner Scott Jurek (7-time Western States Champion) and his USA Montrail team achieved in the two occasions they won the race.

However, this year the PLA’s rein nearly ended with The North Face – Flight chomping through the two PLA teams 15 minute and 7 minute gaps they had built over the first 80 km of the course, setting the stage for a nail biting finish.

Ryan S. Blair, captain of The North Face – Flight, revealed, “the pace the PLA set from the start was incredibly fast and with the extreme humidity we thought they would slow down closer to the finish and we might have a crack at catching them. Despite having one teammate who had been throwing up for 4 hours we pushed so hard to catch the second placed PLA team and almost got within headlights view of their first team but just ran out of racecourse in time to catch them.”