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The best hiking and running trails in Hong Kong – geologist creates guide for newcomers to explore the Island
- Ian Benton wants to make trail running as accessible as possible by directing newcomers to the best locations on Hong Kong Island
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A broken ankle and social distancing rules came at the perfect time for Ian Benton to complete a project he has had on his mind for a while. Confined to home more than ever before, he began to write The Runner’s Guide to Hong Kong: 25 of Hong Kong Island’s Best Runs.
“We were doing the Round the Island run, which is about 55km and I fractured my ankle. You know that level of pain. When you sprain it, it's really sore for about 10 seconds and dissipates. This was sore and after an hour I thought, this is bad,” Benton said. “Just at that time Covid-19 had hit, so we were in that early lockdown stage so I started to write it properly.”
Benton, a Hong Kong-based Scot, has lived in the city for about eight years. Back in the UK, he was not a runner or a hiker. But even as he began to take up the sport, he was unsure where to start and wished he’d had a book back then.
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“We have a Wednesday night running group called the Happy Horse Runners. We were having a beer and one of the guys is a really experienced runner, but not so experienced on the trails. I said it would be a good idea to get some of this written down so we could share it with the likes of him,” he said.
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