Raymond Lee at EOHK

I mentioned to a few hikers today I was in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia last week. One of the hikers turned out to be born in Cambodia. We both agree travelling to the country is safe in general, although we always have to stay alert for petty crimes. On the last day of my trip, I have a short run at city centre in the morning. Not too hot for me, not sure how others might feel.

Usual route for Sunday: leading an EOHK event in the morning, and trail running in the afternoon. Luckily both activities met with only modest rainfall.

Today's hike may serve as a textbook case for organizers: for summer hikes, choose a track with minimal sunlight exposure. Keep the total distance within 10km. Despite the record high temparature at urban areas, we experienced a very cool environment along the forest tracks. Once we reached Ho Pui, we did not hesitate to take the minibus to finish the hike.

Suffering from a flu last week so need to stop vigorous exercise. Had a simple hike from Tai Wai to Shing Mun Reservoir, later became a shortened version of forest bathing and grounding.

Started with traces of rain. Ended with very hot weather warning signal. Need to go very slowly to avoid heatstroke.

Hot weather makes runners feel less energized and naturally reduce training volume, forming a vicious cycle towards poorer performance. My solution is to switch to internal training (my version is a 1km dash followed by a 150 second rest, repeating 4-6 times). After 2 weeks, my pacing returns to within 5 minutes per km.

Today's hike was cut short due to challenging condition on the hiking trail (very slippery due to rain water accumulated a few days ago). We walked back to where we started and have early lunch. Afterwards, yellow rainstorm warning was hoisted.

How to have a 30km trailrun when it's extremely hot? Divide the route into two halfs, have a lunch break in the middle, and choose trails with lots of tree shades.

Sunday's event was cancelled due to weather, but at least no rainstorm was imminent during daytime. Ended the day with a half matathon that also served as the last run for my nearly torn out Topo trailrunning shoes after 4 years of service.

Heavy rain is expected this weekend. Shifted my regular running to Friday evening to enjoy some calm before the storm.