The Runner‘My advice to anyone is just to run more’: Yasso 800 marathon training with top Hong Kong trail runner Jeff Campbell
- Campbell, who doesn’t have an athletic background, transformed his body and mind into an elite runner out of nowhere after moving to Hong Kong in 2014
- Now a top trail runner in the city with sponsors and a coach, he imparts some wisdom on how to get started, or get to the next level
It’s 32 degrees Celsius, 82 per cent humidity, I’m about six and half kilometres into a brutal high-intensity training session with one of Hong Kong’s top long-distance runners, and my body is trying to shut down like an overheating CPU.
Every pore on my skin is leaking sweat out on to the Sham Shui Po Sports Ground track in Cheung Sha Wan. My lungs are labouring, crying out like dying animals and I’m pretty sure my legs are filled to the brim with lactic acid. There is also a voice egging me on, telling me I can go faster, and it is not the one inside my head.
“C’mon, pick it up, that last lap was s**t.”
Jeff Campbell, Hong Kong’s 2017 Male Trail Runner of the Year, is trying his best motivational tactics on me. The 37-year-old fellow Canadian expat is egging me on as I complete the Yasso 800 speed test, which consists of 10 800-metre track runs in a row, with a rest lap between each. It’s seen as a great indicator for marathon times, but right now it’s more of an indicator of how incredibly far off I am, even to hang with the best in Hong Kong when it comes to long-distance running.
Campbell’s story should give beginner runners all over the world like myself a serious boost. When he moved to Hong Kong back in 2014, fitness was not a priority and he admits he was a bit “pudgy”. The lawyer, who works for a multinational company, said he had no background in athletics.