Raleigh Challenge-Wilson Trail Virtual Race 2021
TRAILME: How did you get started as a race organizer?
“I started as a member volunteer of organizing committee of Raleigh Hong Kong since 2012. Most of organising committee are all volunteers and every year we recruit a group of young people to help organize this race. Raleigh Hong Kong is a big charitable event , we need a lot of planning and logistical support, and these young people who volunteered and joined our organising committee helped us a lot and they are committed for around 6 to 9 months. This is a great platform for the teenagers and young adults to learn how to organise a big event and learn how to cooperate and work as team and learn to be flexible when they encounter different problems. So this is how I started, a young member Raleigh Hong Kong organising committee.”
TRAILME: What inspire you as a race organizer?
“What inspire me is the benefit for myself and the other member of organizing committee, where we can raise funding for ourselves for overseas expedition in different developing countries. It was a very good chance for me when I started as a student because I gained experience on how I communicate to others, how to think from multiple aspects and prospective and also learnt how to run and organise a good event. It also inspired me seeing runners in the check point who challenged themselves to complete to the finish point and hearing their opinions where it helps us improve to organised the race much better.”
TRAILME: Will you tell us a little bit about the Wilson Raleigh ?
“This is a charity event aimed to raise funds in continuing to support the youth Challenge. Wilson Trail first started in 2000 as an internal event for Raleigh members to challenge themselves. Because of the enormous response from the participants, this event became open to the public in 2003.”
TRAILME: It’s been a tough year for racing, with COVID-19. What is your biggest challenge as a race organizer?
“Because of the government race permit restriction, the biggest challenge as organizers is not knowing whether we have the physical race or virtual race. The planning is very different when we do physical race; it requires a lot of volunteers, manpower and logistic support for food and beverage. It really requires a lot of preparations and with this pandemic, it is not easy to plan, so as an organizer, you have to be well prepared to have a backup plan, which is the virtual race.”
TRAILME: With the COVID-19 situation in the city, how do you feel about the cancellation of races? Does it affect the trail running community a lot?
“I feel very sad hearing about the cancellation of races because I hope that the physical race will happen this year. This has a significant impact on the trail running community in Hong Kong. Hearing from my group friends and other participants who are not big of virtual race, they think the physical is more competitive and much better. Personally, I was initially not interested in virtual races, but as time went by, I felt bored not racing, so I decided to join a few virtual races. It was good, but it requires a lot of planning, and for a long-distance race, it’s not easy without physical support, and I see this as one of the impact for long-distance runners as support is not provided by the organizer when doing the virtual race.”
TRAILME: What role do you think technology has to play? How have you been adapting to the new virtual format? Was it easy to transition?
“As a runner, the transition required detailed planning to where I could get food and water and in this case I have to ask for personal support from friends; the good thing by using the TRAILME helped my supporters to track me. As an organiser, the transition from physical to virtual is not that difficult. When doing the physical, we focused on the checkpoint support, but for the virtual race, we spent more time on promotion on social media to motivate runners to be engaged. We also help with the registration so more runners can join. In addition, we give out a good souvenir for the runners in their race pack.”
TRAILME: Do you think the virtual format will carry on?
“We hope the physical trail running race will happen this year because the Standard Chartered Marathon has already happened. And we thought OTW would go ahead smoothly, but sadly it was not good news for them, and a few of the long-distance events (HK 100) also put their registration on hold for now. I don’t have confidence that other events will go ahead, and I think virtual will go on this year.”
TRAILME: I know the virtual Wilson Raleigh challenge race still running for another week, but so far what has been your most memorable experience on this event?
“I think it was the two days support in our cheering stations. Because it mimics the physical race and we have communications from the runners and we can take some photos and exchange information to how we can improve. We did a lot of preparations as a team so it was memorable experience specially supporting people in Hok Tau where runners needed more support om this part of Wilson Trail. We were so happy to see happy runners to received our support.”
TRAILME: What’s your personal favourite trail in Hong Kong and why?
“One of my favourite trail is Pat Sen Ling- The 8 immortals because the scenery is very good, you can see the Tolo harbour and the greenery mimics the location some part of Europe. It is also challenging and every time I run this trail I feel so satisfied and happy.”
TRAILME: Any words of advice for trail runners this year?
“For Trail runners, even we can’t do the physical race at the moment, continue to go outside and continue to challenge yourselves and enjoy the nature. “
