Taiwan Beast Runners delivered another fantastic event with the third edition of Run Through the Jungle. This event which is divided into 34km (2400m D+), 17km (1250m D+) and 10km (800m D+) and with its slogan being: “Survive now, cry later” does warn you of how difficult it will be.
The weather was spectacular and the runners were eager to start running. Local star 周青 Ching Chou among other fast runners wanted to beat the course record of 5:50:30.0 set in 2017 by Henri Lehkonen under terrible weather conditions
At 6am sharp more than 130 runners started running and were soon greeted by a cold river with slippery stones.
Some athletes were spotted crawling
Others were rock climbing
and some even thought that shoes were not useful
But all of them were smiling and having a good time
After a wet start for the first kilometres runners went on to find waterfalls, tea plantations, and of course more jungle.
At check point A, the athlete Taiwanese 周青 Ching Chou was the first one to arrive in just under 1h:30m; he was on his way to break the course record. Soon after, russian athlete Sasha Tarasov was second followed by USA runner Cory Lewandowski. They all stopped for a quick snack and continued running. Other athletes decided to stay for a bit and enjoy some of the fresh fruits and warm soups whilst getting mentally ready for the next part of the race.
Minutes later the conditions changed and the visibility was low but thanks to the good marking and the helpful volunteers no-one got lost. Except maybe a couple of 10km runners who ended up doing the 17km course, but I reckon they just wanted some more jungle time!
The weather changed yet again and runners took this to their advantage. After completing a loop and returning to CP-A the gap amongst the first athletes was massive. Chou Ching was still first, Sasha was 10 minutes behind him and Cory was 20 minutes behind Sasha.
The fight for the other two spots on the top five was being run by Patrick Jose Scott-Graham from The UK, Derek Tober from USA and Piotr Draczkowski from Poland.
Extremely tired but with smiles on their faces all the athletes kept safely running to the finish line.
It was a successful event with a new course record of 4:56:08 by 周青 Ching Chou and a new female course record by Taiwanese Stella Chen with 7:08:11.
Here are the top 5 for male and female:
My wish for next year is that Henri Lehkonen and 江晏慶 Yen-Ching Chiang can run this event again and together with 周青 Ching Chou set another course record. Oh and also that the weather will be great!
More pictures of this event can be found here.
Thank you and until next time.
Randall Vargas B
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