Xavier and I meet our guide, Martin, downtown St-Gervais. It is still pitch dark. We drop by the rental shop and hire heavy winter mountaineering boots (Scarpa Mont Blanc Pro Gtx), harnesses, crampons, ice axes, poles and helmets. We throw our bags in Martin’s Mitsubishi pick-up truck and we are off. We cross the Mont […]

It doesn’t always work out as planned and that is a lesson that endurance sports can teach, staying humble and accepting temporary failure. Night racing clearly requires additional focus. After 8km and a good starting pace, Tyler and I were taking relays leading our group of 3, we passed a bunch of people and were […]

It’s 630pm Friday night. Xavier and I are on the ferry from Hong Kong central to the Lantau Island Mui Wo ferry pier where the race starts. 830pm start for our Moontrekker 40km trail run night race. 3 months of training coming together. A big thank you to Sarah for preparing a training plan and […]

Trail running in Hong Kong is ‘world-class’. The trails are phenomenal, you can trail-run right from your home, and you can run in total peace and away from the noise for hours. Therefore for my second trail-run race, I picked MoonTrekker, a key race in the HK trail running calendar. It is a night race, […]

A brief race report of the Ironman 70.3 japan today: – 92% finishers – 1985 participants signed up 1500 raced – 20% foreigners – 1400 volunteers!!! Why is it #1? The organisation is flawless, the volunteers were everywhere at each bike turn of the 90km, warning for turn, speed, bumps etc. The logistics is incredible […]

2018 has been a special year so far with my first 50k ultra trail run in Feb and now a half ironman in Japan, the only one of 2018. Sarah is unfortunately not with me this time, at home resting, no more travel until the D day. This ironman event is quite unique as it […]

It is 515am, after 4 days waking up early my body clock is wondering why I am not getting up to go climbing. I see pink clouds in the distance surrounding mount Yotei and the urge to go out is too great. I get dressed and go for a phenomenal trail run. It has snowed […]

The short version: 7:47 of climbing to reach the summit on our 3rd attempt this week. Great team work and excellent gear to make it through the icy parts towards the summit. The long version: we wake up at 345am, finish prepping our gear most of the backpacks have been prepared last night. We start […]

Nice day today, 5am wake up, 7am we are off on the trail after I forgot my poles at home and Pat and Xav went to pick them up while I kept the gear. Weather is overcast but a few rays of sun appear here and there. Amazing view as we gain in altitude. Quickly […]

Yesterday we had a long evening preparing the gear, planning the climb. The goal was to get close to the summit, camp one night, ski down the crater and back up and down tomorrow. Time on the mountain: 5:47 Ascent: 363m -> 1134 -> 363 Weather: overcast, cold -5 (with windchill prob -15) Mount Yotei […]