Hong Kong Marathon: runners happy to be back in ‘new normal’ and hear ‘patter of feet’ once again as race returns after two years
- The 2020 Standard Chartered Hong Kong marathon was cancelled due to the pandemic, and the 2021 version pushed back from February to October
- Racers say they are happy to be back and ‘feel the patter of all these feet together’
Serene Yu was so excited to be able to race again she had her friend who is an artist paint a Hong Kong flag and the Standard Chartered logo on her early on Sunday morning.
“I also got my nails painted in the same colours for this,” said the 25-year-old who completed the 10k in 49 minutes, 25 seconds. “After the pandemic there was such a long time in between races so I was so excited for this. This has been such a good experience.”
Yu, who last raced in January of 2019, which was her first race, said it felt a bit strange to be back out running with so many people, but she adjusted fairly quickly.
“During the tunnel I felt a bit suffocated because there was a lot of traffic, but then after I got out I felt a lot better and picked up again.”
Matthew Ip, who is the coach for Hav Cheuk-lun, 20, ran with him to finish the 10k in around an hour and said the whole experience was “exhilarating”.
“The whole way I felt like I had energy because of the crowd and the people. It felt really nice.”
There was also a heavy police presence on Sunday and reports that some racers were barred from competing for wearing clothing that featured certain words or slogans. However, most were happy to be back in what many dubbed the “new normal”.
MaryAnn Sayaz and Genta Branstetter, friends who ran the 10k together in 54:52, said it felt amazing to get back in a real race setting. The two are international teachers in Hong Kong and Branstetter said she heard something she hadn’t heard in a long time.
“It’s just a different feel when you’re together with thousands of people,” she said. “Just the patter of all these feet together. And being out with people and moving through a city together, I am new here so this is all I know. It feels like normal is coming back again, slowly.”
Sayaz, who has been in Hong Kong for five years, said it was impossible to ignore the excitement even before the sun came up.
“There was this new enthusiasm in the air when we were starting out early this morning, even when we were on the MTR we could feel it. The one thing I did miss is, everybody is from Hong Kong for this race and it was kind of nice having people fly in for this [in previous years], so I feel like that’s the thing that’s missing.”
The men’s marathon was won by Wong Kai-lo while Christy Yiu took the women’s title. Yochai Nissim, 62, who is originally from Israel, completed the half in 1:43 and said the last time he raced was at the 2019 Shanghai Marathon. He said he felt lucky to complete his race before the sun came out and the temperature shot up.
“It was a bit harder than normal because of the heat, because normally it’s in January or February,” said Nissim who has lived in Hong Kong for six years and completed the race four times previously. “But it was very cool today, compared to the last few weeks it was pretty cool.”
