Mike Rowse

Opinion | Hong Kong can put its best foot forward with a revamped marathon

If every resident was encouraged to attempt a full marathon at least once in their life, the health benefits would be tremendous. To facilitate this, marathon planners must revisit two aspects – the time limit and route

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Runners enjoy the crowds in Causeway Bay during the Hong Kong Marathon event on January 21. Photo: Eugene Lee

Mike Rowse

Published: 4:30pm, 28 Jan 2024Updated: 4:47pm, 28 Jan 2024

The Hong Kong Marathon returned to our streets with a bang this month and captured the imagination of everyone in the city. After several years of Covid-induced reduced capacity, 74,000 runners could take part in the full marathon, half-marathon and 10km options this year.

The excitement generated by the sight of such large crowds of participants, many in colourful costumes, and throngs of cheering supporters, gives us a chance to make the event even more successful. Our health authorities should join forces with sporting circles to seize the opportunity. Every resident should be encouraged to run a full marathon at least once in their life.

The spin-off benefits of generating such an ambition would be tremendous. It would focus attention on the advantages of regular exercise, even among those not particularly enthusiastic about running itself. They could play football, rugby, basketball or whatever other sport catches their fancy.

But for those who are attracted by the challenge, it is not just the 42.2km to be run on the day itself. There will be months of training in preparation, probably including a more careful diet to spare the knees and ankles – another useful health benefit. Moreover, many would probably stage their preparation over a few years, running 10km first, then stepping up to the longer distances as overall fitness improved.

That was the pattern of my own participation: after being appointed to establish InvestHK in 2000, I decided as part of departmental team-building to form a squad to take part, and encouraged others to enter by signing myself up for the 10km run.

Several colleagues joined me, a few even jumped straight to the half-marathon and one brave soul signed up for the full marathon. Because of all the air travel the new job entailed, I started to run 10km every weekend in an effort to hold deep vein thrombosis at bay.