Xtreme Marathon

Xtreme Marathon by TVB Hong Kong.

A documentary made by TVB Hong Kong on two extreme marathons. One in North Pole (North Pole Marathon) and the other in Sahara desert (Marathon des Sables). Extreme coldness and extreme heat.  It is a joy that at last the Hong Kong Television is getting interested to do documentaries on marathons. In the documentary, two Hong Kong actor, Kenny Wong and Oscar Leung are selected to participate in the event. I wonder if the actor knows how tough and dangerous this assignment is. But I understand the TV station bought a hefty sum of insurance for this documentary.

Kenny Wong and Oscar Leung

It is a 5 episodes (30 mins) documentary which also emphasized on global warming and wasting of earth resources. Oscar Leung was selected to participate in the North Pole Marathon which he has to run 9 laps on the floating ice for 42km at the North Pole. They were allowed to go into the resting tent after every completed lap. They are six men and one woman from Hong Kong which accompanied him on this adventure. The six men are all experienced marathoners but not Oscar Leung. He has not ran even a half marathon before. He says he has only completed two training runs of 10K. You can see how torturing he felt after the 3rd lap. And after the 4th lap, he just couldn't run anymore. He just decided to walk the rest of the marathon. He almost give up after the 8 lap not even wanting to complete the last lap. He is afraid that he may die if he did last lap. Eventually, the photographers actually accompany him to complete the last lap. He finally completed the race in 11 hours and 10 mins.

This is what Oscar Leung commented after the race which I have tried my best to translate it to English.  "In beginning, my initial intention of running this race is wrong. I wanted to compete with other participants and win the others. Running a marathon is just like life. You are not competing with others but with yourself. There is no winning or losing. Only whether you can do it or not. If you can't do it, it does not mean that you can't do it forever and you have failed. The next time you can do better. The most important thing to remember is to persevere and not be influenced my things and people around you. Because as long as you don't admit that you lose, you will never lose. This is my greatest inspiration from the race".

North Pole Marathon

Kenny Wong participated in Marathon des Sables at the Sahara Desert. It is a 240km race for 7 days across the Sahara Desert. From the documentary, I think he did not run the full race due to the difficulty and dangers of the race. But he did fully complete the last day of the race which is a marathon distance. One of the interesting thing that I remembered about the documentary is he has to bring a small syringe that is required by the race organiser. The purpose of the syringe is that in the event of a snake bite, you are supposed to use the syringe to draw out as much venom as possible from the bite to prevent it from circulating to other parts of the body. One of the memorable part of the race is running in the night underneath the stars of the Sahara Desert. This remind me of a similar incident at the marathon in Langkawi where we were running underneath the stars near the Langkawi airport.

The 28th Marathon des Sables

If you are interested in understanding the two marathons and the dangers of global warming, give this documentary a watch.