When Lucy Tang entered her 40s she did what most people do - she wondered whether the constant socialising was really how she should still be spending her time.
Unlike most people, though, Tang didn't just roll over and let the question hang while sinking back under the duvet and into the relative security of another hangover; instead she got up and she got going. In 2005 she swapped her high heels for trainers and reinvented herself as an ultra-marathoner. It has been a remarkable transformation.
In the few years since, the now 44-year-old Tang has conquered the pinnacles of ultra-marathoning. On March 12 she became the first Hong Kong woman to complete the 4-Deserts series of courses (250km over six days) which takes in races in Chile, China, Egypt and the Antarctica.
And before we forget, Tang is of course Lady Lucy Tang, one-time high-society set regular and wife of Sir David Tang, who has over the years revelled in the fact that he lives life to the fullest. But walking away from the high life wasn't really ever a concern, says Lucy Tang, not once her decision had been made. 'Call it a mid-life crisis or being worried about my health but whatever it was I found the answer,' she says.
The decision also came from a source very close to home.
'The choice for me came when my father died from Parkinson's and I wanted to raise some money for research into the disease,' she says. 'I thought I could either sit around a table or go out and do something. But I never dreamed I could achieve this or become the first Hong Kong girl [to run the 4-Deserts series]. I never won anything at school, in sports. So that sense of achievement, of finishing, of finding that strength, nothing comes close to that feeling.'