Mt Kinabalu - Climbathon Oct 2005

Nothing makes the hearts of runners sink than the sight of a looming hill up ahead. To a recreational athlete such as me, a hill means possible painful extra exertion on the lungs and legs.
Unfortunately, as most people know, Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia is no ordinary "hill". At 4095.2m (13435ft), it is stated as "the highest mountain between the Himalayas and the Mountains of New Guinea Island"
About 30,000 walkers a year make the journey to the summit of this world heritage site. Typically they will stay overnight at the Park HQ, then walk up to 11,000 ft and stay overnight in huts at the Laban Rata rest house for further altitude acclimatisation. Then very early on the second or third day they set out with torches to reach the summit for a beautiful sunrise.
I first heard about a race up this famous mountain when I arrived in Thailand, it sounded interesting! In fact this ‘climbathon’ forms part of the World Mountain Running Championships and involves both running up and down Mt. Kinabalu, a total distance of just over 21 KM. Runners were expected to reach the summit (Low's Peak) within the 2h30m cut off time and the finish line within 4h30m. The record for the 21 km Climbathon which most normal people do in 2 days (8.7 km up and down, with an additional 4.5 km on the road at the end) is an unbelievable 2 hrs 45 mins set by UK runner Ian Holmes.
Well it is said that curisosity killed the cat and it nearly finished me off too. I climbed Mt Kinabalu along with my wife during the last songkran holidays over the course of a few days and suffered such a bad bout of altitude-induced nausea and dizziness that I thought the title of “The World’s Toughest Mountain Race” was probably justified and knew the event would be pretty challenging.
There is little you can do to prepare for such an event in Bangkok, a city notable for its complete lack of gradients and my mountain running training was limited to abandoning the use of the lift at my apartment block for a couple of weeks!
Now I’m no super athlete, a middle of the pack runner who for reasons not yet fully understood likes to attempt any activity that presents a challenge. My main goal for this event was to meet the qualifying time of 2h30m at Low's Peak summit. After achieving that nothing else really mattered.
At the start line surrounded by professional mountain runners from all over the world; the nerves were building, would I finish? Is the 2hr 30min cut off even possible?
As you'd expect, I started full of the joys of spring, running the less steep sections passing a few bewildered tourists, but the track just goes up and up, without a respite, and the main way of getting up the mountain is…stairs ... big stairs up to knee height in fact between the start and the Laban Rata rest house at 11,000 feet (3353 m) there are literally thousands of them ... The steps are randomly made from tree roots, planks and in places cut into the rock and as the mountain is shrouded in mist much of the time, the surface is not one that would be called ideal.
By about 8,000 ft there was not much running, and by 10,000 ft with my pulse flat out pounding in my head some sort of shuffling jog was all that was possible.
The section after the rest house is very challenging. It rises about 1000 feet (300 m) in about 700 metres of travel, with much of it up fixed ladder-type steps which at times are at an angle of 60-70 degrees from the horizontal. Just under 12,000 feet (around 3600 m), you leave the trees behind and the mountain stretches out across a huge granite rock face. Park wardens have laid a rope from this point to the top,In some cases this is needed to pull yourself up on steeper sections, but it's main purpose is to show the way and to serve as a marker in thick cloud. It also provides a sense of security when you realise you are traversing a couple of kms of sloping rock face with nothing much between you and the trees a thousand or so feet below.
Low's Peak, the highest point, rises sharply for the last several hundred feet from the summit plateau, and this proved quite a challenge with my wobbly legs and thin air, - so near yet so far. Eventually 2 hrs and 24 mins after leaving the foot of the mountain I reached the summit. After just plugging away for hours running up the mountain looking at your feet, you get to the summit and have a brief opportunity to take in the blue skies and perfect panoramic views for miles. The top itself can hold about 10 people with not much elbow room to spare and looking down the other side you can see the sharp drop of some 1800 metres into Low's Gully where 10 British soldiers got stuck for 3 weeks in 1994 on a training exercise.

Whilst the descent is much quicker than the ascent, it is much harder because muscles are under serious abuse, as you constantly have to use all your strength to brake. Normally on rough ground down hill, my feet seem to find a good spot to land without me thinking about it. But I was having great difficulty making this happen on the steep slopes at 13,000 feet.

Halfway down I became aware that I was running faster than was advisable, and I attempted to slow the pace. However, my quads had had enough and did not respond to my command. I saw a big rock coming up, and decided to land on it, as that would normally slow my descent. However in this case, my legs gave up the ghost and before I knew it I was on the way down the mountain a little faster than I was happy with. After coming to an abrupt stop on a rock, a quick examination found a few rips in the clothing and a particularly heroic looking cut on the leg, which seemed to bleed disproportionately to its actual size had me descending the mountain looking like I had been attacked by wild animals!

I finished the 21km race in a little over 4 hours 40 mins. Arriving at the finish; I was cold, bruised and tired but strangely content. This is what it is all about to me.Physically this was one of the hardest events I've ever done ... harder than the couple of marathons I have attempted and harder than the few long triathlons I have struggled through. After reflection my verdict still stands, and at almost 5 hours to cover 21 kms and after losing my ability to walk or sit down properly for almost a week there's ample justification for this opinion. Will I have a go at it again next year? …....Probably!