Climbathon 2011 - Mission Accomplished !

Finally it is over..Mt Kinabalu Climbathon 2011. For the better part of 2011, my training has been geared towards this race.

Glad that I have improved significantly over last year's performance, eventhough I did not achieve my initial target of 3hr15min to summit and race completion 5hr15min... I managed to summit in 3hr28 min and complete the race in 5hr 25min..  just 10 min over shoot...

The contingent from Peninsular Malaysia is one of the largest this year. In our particular group, we have runners from Ipoh, Penang, Cameron Highlands, and KL/PJ. Most of them are part of Pacesetter athletics group.

Out of this group, a total of six of us made the summit and back down within qualifying time of 6hr 30 min. There is one person, AB Tan who has trained very hard for the race.. almost 4 months of dedicated training since June. You can read all about his story here: http://penguin-r2.blogspot.com/2011/10/mt-kinabalu-climbathon-2011-2.html

The Men's Open race was keenly followed by Skyrunners all over the world because of the anticipated rivalry between Kilian Jornet ( in white)  and Marco De Gasperi (in green). Two currently top ranked Skyrunners in the world at the moment.

After almost 2 hours 30min, they emerged side-by-side at Timpohon gate about 4KM to the finishing line!!.  Kilian narrowly won the race  by 44 secs... in 2 hr 37min 4 sec... that was all the time he took to go up and down Mt Kinabalu - Amazing !