FitFam Beijing completes the Hood to Coast China 2023
Team FitFam
Congratulations to :
Fay He
JingLei Liu
Dima Kavalionak
Manny Qing
And Linda Li
On finishing the Hood to Coast China 2023 relay race with a finished distance of 142.4km with 17 relay points.
Every team was to finish the entire distance within 24hours from September 1 -2 2023.
Like many races in China, this was a tough race to get bibs to, the team entered into the lottery hoping to represent FitFam. Thankfully they were selected to race.
Race started on the 1st September at 10pm with over 700 teams in the race with a maximum of 5 runners each.
The plan was to run about 3-4 times each through the race course, each stretch was approximately 10km through different terrain, from the mountains to the flatter plains.
The team put in the miles with many races the last few months from half marathons to trail runs, so they were individually ready for race day.
The race was very well organized as all the information about the lengths were shared beforehand, therefore the teams could plan the best strategy and selected the lengths that were suitable for each runner.
Manny and Dima are strong trail runners so as the terrain changed we were able to gift them with hills and mountains to take advantage of their strengths.
The team drove 4 hours to the start point: Senado Racecourse, Zhangbei County, Zhangjiakou City Hebei Province and ended the race at the Xueruyi National Ski Jumping Center Zhangjia kou City, – a Winter Olympics 2022 venue.
The gunshot at 10pm to start the race, was the signal for the first batch of runners to start and every 20 mins another 25 teams started. FitFam started in the (lucky) 8th batch at 00:20.
The team took turns to drive – so all team members had their driving license, which was a prerequisite to joining the FF team. With a staggered start time to ensure congestion on the roads was minimal.
With the driver driving to the next relay point, one runner was running their stretch, the other runners were inside the car preparing to run, resting, or recovering, so there was maximum rest time once the runner was done and plenty of time for preparation for all the runners. However with all the excitement there was very little sleep in the car.
Jinglei ran first, then Manny, Fay, Linda and Dima. The car was fully stocked with ProPud protein bars, safety and first aid supplies and change of gear sponsored by X Bionic and ProPud . There were no drink stations and snack stations along the race course, everything the team required, needed to be prepared and inside the car, so meticulous planning was key.
Thank you for the support
Roads were blocked off for the race for maximum safety for the runners, runners ran on the right and the left side of the road is where cars were driving to the check point to relieve the runner.
Unfortunately, Manny was sick and braved through her runs. But there were sections of the race that Fay bravely picked up Manny’s run lengths and dug deep with back to back sections.
This is the first time for this much planning, coordination and comraderie for these 5. It was a good energy level, well matched personalities and team work. But most of all it was fun, with good laughter pushing through some tough sections, in the middle of the night and spending more than 24 hours together.
With each other support and respect they did an amazing job with some added race day competitiveness, the team did really well.
Team FitFam completed 142.4km with 2000m+ elevation in 14 hours 26 mins and 50 seconds
Shortly after the team finished the sky started falling with hail and it rained so hard the race organizers were forced to cancel the race for the remaining runners for safety reasons.
Sadly these other runners didn’t get to feel the adrenaline of crossing that finish line hand in hand with their team members.
What an incredible way to share a unique China experience with FitFam friends. Finishing 36th place out of 700 is an amazing effort.
Congratulations Team!
Would love to hear your FitFam stories. Please do reach out to hello@wefitfam.com for more information.