Hong Kong 298km Four Trails ‘finisher’ Chung returns despite pain, lamenting ‘what did I expect?’

Hyun Chang Chung is returning for the Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge and is in for 60 hours of pain

The 298km run is marking its 10th edition by only inviting previous ‘finishers’ and ‘survivors’

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Hyun Chang Chung returns for Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge, despite the suffering of 2020. Photo: Stanley Wong – 9Dragons Race

Published: 6:10pm, 11 Feb 2021Updated: 7:46pm, 14 Feb 2021

Hyun Chang Chung suffers from a bad memory when running ultramarathons, and has even forgotten the ordeal of completing last year’s 298km Hong Kong Four Trails Challenge (HK4TUC). The Korean is returning for more pain, 12 months after becoming just the 16th finisher ever.

“I was finishing and thinking I’m never doing this again. But everyone gets that feeling. It’s so painful, you’re swearing at yourself for doing this kind of race. You’re telling yourself, ‘why am I doing this, I don’t want to do this again’. When you cross [the finish] you say, ‘I’m done, I don’t have to do this any more’. But you never learn the lesson,” Chung, 47, said on The Adventure Trail podcast.

The HK4TUC links all four major trails in Hong Kong – the 100km MacLehose, the 78km Wilson Trail, the 50km Hong Kong Trail and the 70km Lantau Trail. Runners are not allowed any support and there are no checkpoints, though they do have help travelling between the trails.

If they reach the postbox in Mui Wo on Lantau, which marks the end, in under 60 hours they are deemed a ‘finisher’. If they reach it in under 72 hours, they are a ‘survivor’. Chung finished in 59 hours and 46 minutes, the narrowest margin of any finisher.

“I was super panicked. When I was at Sunset Peak [the final mountain], I was going down as fast as I could. I didn’t have the chance to enjoy that last bit. I was pushing hard to the point I was stumbling,” he said.