The Wuzhong Four Seasons 30k would be my first trail race in over a year, and I sure felt it. Just under five hours in the mountains climbing 1,900 meters over 30 kilometres with some leg busting ascents and gnarly downhill. And a good bit of narrow, stony, and downright hazardous trail thrown in just for good measure. A nice challenging race and a great start to the 2018 running calendar.

In the UK we have cross country, where we run over grass out in the fields or on some sort of path in the woods, and hill running (also known as fell-running in England), where we go up and down some steep hills to hurt our legs. In the US and the rest of the world this kind of thing is known as trail-running. Trail race courses range from being relatively flat on well marked trails, to hilly races up and down through thick scrub or over rocks. In China, the trail running tends to be of the latter variety, up and down steep hills over rough tracks to trip over rocks and into dense bamboo that smacks you in the face.

The Wuzhong four seasons trail race would be yet another difficult trail race in China. Taking place on Sunday morning 14th of January at Xishan mountain island in the middle of Taihu lake next to my Chinese home-town of Suzhou. A couple of long bridges away.

It was a fellow Suzhou runner, Brett from the US, who let me know about this race, and we would share a car to travel from Suzhou to Xishan on the day of the competition. This meant quite an early start for me after a night of scrambling about to get my gear in order.

I always feel like I end up taking too much equipment for these races. A lot of the other runners seem to carry a lot less and I doubt that the half of them take all the officially required equipment. Never mind, at least I know I’d be prepared for a night on the mountain if it came to it, even if nobody else is. But let’s hope it never comes to that.

The ride to Xishan takes around an hour and a half and we arrive with about 20 minutes to spare. Just about enough time to collect our numbers, get changed, visit the hole-in-the-ground bathroom facilities and get ourselves to the tent at the start-line to drop the bags.

There were quite a few foreign faces among the Chinese at the start of the race. I’m guessing a coach-load from Shanghai, some French, German and British sounding people. There were also a few familiar faces from the Suzhou running club. But mostly Chinese runners at the start.

It ended up being good weather that day for running. It’d been cold and miserable all week, but the sun came out for this race and it stayed pretty much dry and not too cold all day. I should have left my rain jacket and gloves in my bag as once I got going I didn’t need them. I also ended up taking too much juice out with me. My 500ml lasted mist of the race and I could’ve done without the extra weight.

I managed to move reasonably close to the front before we started. Just far enough back to have some space to warm up. Even then, it took a while to cross the line and it was shoulder to shoulder for the first few hundred meter.

As we passed along the road out of the little town the path took a slight uphill gradient getting gradually steeper until the first steps after only about a kilometer. The start of the tough bit.

A few guys began to skip up the first few sets of steps, but I took the more cautious approach of the majority and opted for a brisk march. There was no point in pushing too hard at the start just to suffer later on. But even just walking here started my legs aching pretty much straight away. My calves soon felt like my feet were made out of lead and the muscles at the front of my lower legs began to throb. This wasn’t the most pleasant sensation, but I wasn’t too concerned at this point. Normally the legs tend to ache a bit at the start of a race but get better after a few kilometers. I pushed on and angled my ascent a bit to try and spread the hurt over more of my leg as the more sprightly runners pushed past me on the way to the top. I knew if I could hold on in there then I would be over the worst of it soon enough.

This first hill would be about a 340 meter climb. Claude from the Suzhou running club let me know when we were near the top as he passed me on the steps, “first one almost done”. I didn’t know how many hills we had in total as I hadn’t checked the course map beforehand. It turns out we had six big hills to go up and down. A total ascent of 1,900 meters. Lots of steep steps too.

After the first climb, which was mostly steps, I was already wrecked. After that the first descent was thankfully not too steep. Just enough to let go and fall downhill, and I actually managed to get past some of the runners who overtook me on the ascent. Then we had a nice single lane path twisting through some trees before, all too soon, having to climb uphill again. Up through the trees scrambling over the dirt. By this time I was sweating heavily through my rain jacket and the rain was dripping onto my glasses to give the world a trippy streaky effect.

I was finding the effort to climb this hill both mentally and physically exhausting as I constantly needed to look for a branch or foothold to anchor myself on. This was tiring stuff.

Closer to the top of the second hill the trail turned into some rocky pathway and we managed a nice view of some golden Buddha thing at the top. The sun was out and shining brightly. We passed into some thick forest then continued our ascent to the second of the six summits. Up over the crest of the hill then back down again.

The descent from the second peak was very steep down over a rocky trail with branches on each side. My size 11 feet didn’t allow me to pick up any sort of speed whatsoever. I needed to slow right down and keep a good eye on the trail at all times. If I lost focus for one moment my foot would catch a stone and send me lunging forward. Although I lost my footing a couple of times, I managed to stay on my feet. I took off my jacket and packed it away into my bag as we passed through the little town on the way to the first aid station.

The first aid station was quite busy. I stopped to grab a cup or two of ginger tea and moved on. There was no point in loitering. I didn’t want to linger too long lest I get too comfortable and stiffen up before I have to move again. A couple of gulps of the warm medicine tasting liquid and I’m off again, ready to rock.

At the first aid station we merged with the guys at the tail of the 15k race. So, we met a few less experienced guys, some walkers, and people doing the race together as a group. It was nice to see some different types of runners enjoying the mountain on the shorter race. A good mix of men and ladies, as well as some older and younger folks. It seemed that some of these guys were finding it tough going, but determined to push on to the finish nonetheless.

A smaller hill took us up and down before the third big hill, around here the path was quite narrow and crowded, but the slower 15k runners do a good job of letting us pass on the way down. I miss the marker and manage to take a wrong turn on the way down into some hedges. I’m sure this was down to tiredness more than anything else, but I didn’t get far down the wrong path before noticing my folly and turning back.

The third hill starts steep then passes onto some road with some fantastic views near the top. At the top the trail is a bit easier to run on. Nicely up and down on a rocky path. I suck down a gel and, around the 17k mark, follow some other runners to go off-course again. Damn. Luckily someone shouts after me, but I’ve already pounded uphill to stray a couple of hundred meters off track to lose some vital energy.

Back on track, we climb up-hill and through some wooded area then into the bamboo. It was pretty much impossible to run through this stuff. It leaned in from either side so you were constantly smacked in the face and couldn’t see your feet. This lasted until for 10 or 15 minutes until the next downhill.

This next downhill section was the toughest yet. First we’re climbing over stuff then going down a rocky path with branches on either side. In an effort to not trip up on the rocks I get caught paying a little too much attention to the trail coming under me and hit my head off a branch. This was right before the bottom of the hill. My head hits the branch and my body continues forward to slide into the embankment. A sore one, but not too much damage I don’t think. I actually managed to stay on my feet and keep my glasses and on despite being smacked right between the eyes. No permanent damage but it fair woke me up.

Eventually the road came into sight under us as we passed off the rocky path onto some tea plantation. A couple of other runners ahead of me seemed to fly down the path. I recognized these guys as the runners who had led me off-course at the top of the hill. I could only hobble down this one on account of the damage my legs had already taken and my shell-shocked condition from the branch hitting me on the head.

As we moved along the road at the bottom of the hill I felt my bleeding forehead and looked at my hand with the blood mixing in with the sweat. Luckily it wasn’t too bad, just a scratch. But my legs were mighty sore at the front above the knee from the impact of my over cautious descent. At least the runners around me didn’t look like they were in that much of a better condition, and we’d already covered a good 18 or 19 kilometers to reach the second aid station. I was good and ready for some refreshment in time for the final portion of the race and the three final peaks.

At the second and final aid station I took a little more time to drink some water, drink some cola, and fill my water bottle with some hot ginger tea. My bottle was actually still about a quarter full of grape juice from the start of the race, it tasted nice mixed with the tea. I had a feeling that this last part of the race would be tough, so I wanted to have some fuel in my body. Head down. Push forward.

The next hill started gently on some road. I nursed down my tea to deal with the climb. It tasted good. We passed off the road onto another road on to the summit then down again to the forth hill. This hill wasn’t so tricky, so I concentrated on conserving my energy for the final push to the finish.

The forth hill twisted up some road, then turned onto a tough path. Like a false summit thing. Near the top here, the view was like a map of the whole east side of the island. I was starting to feel that the end was near. Normally at this stage of a race I get a little kick of energy to carry me on to the finish and it feels good. The path to the actual summit was a bit more difficult and I lost track of the runners ahead of me before reaching the top. Again, not much time to take your breath at the top before another steep downhill.

The descent from the forth hill was down through some terracing, where I took another wrong turn for a bit, then onto what seemed like endless steep crumbly steps. At this point there were no other runners in sight and I felt like I was ready to slide of the end off the world. Awesome. The muscles above my knees took another pounding as I crashed down the steps back down to terra firma.

At the bottom of the hill there are a few houses and I start to think that the climbing must be over. Not so. We pass up the little road and onto yet more more steps. By this time we’ve joined with the 15k runners again and I can see some of these guys are really struggling. We pound up some more steps and onto road before the final set of long steps alongside an icy stream still frozen from the last week. This was surely the last hill.

After reaching the top, the descent was steep to begin with then, after passing over a river, we got onto the road for the last couple of kilometers. I could really pick up my pace over this section and managed to pass two or three other runners before tuning into the town for the last kilometer. I almost caught up with another guy right before the end but he saw me coming and put on a bit of a sprint. I wasn’t going to race him at this point in the race with the state I was in.

At the finish we took a sharp left to cross the line and collect our medals. 4 hours 55 second. Not a bad time, but my legs were destroyed. I actually didn’t feel so bad after the race standing at the finish line waiting for Brett to finish. But it’d be another week before my legs felt better and I could run properly again. This was about the same time the cut on my head and the scrapes on my legs healed up.

It was a tough course for sure, but it felt good to back back on the trail and have another race under my belt. Here’s hoping the next race will be a bit less abrasive if not quite as scenic or testing as this one!