Last weekend, Quang Tran, a champ of Vietnam Mountain Marathon and Vietnam Trail Marathon, did his first Everesting challenge which requires participants to do multiple repeat climbs of the same hill until they reach 8848m elevation. This is also the first Everesting running challenge in Vietnam, while others have done bike Everestings.
Quang’s challenge started at 8pm on June 21 and finished at 3:30 am on June 23, nearly 31 hours with 10 ascents and descents of Ba Den Mountain. Quang covered 61.27km with an elevation of 8,850m. Some of his friends from the running community also came along to run in support.
“My aim for this Everesting challenge is to train for my next race Spartathlon 246km this Sept in Greece” Quang said.
“This was also a personal challenge which I have wanted to complete since a long time ago. The weather was not so convenient, storms and torrential rain made the mossy rock course very slippery plus the terrain with 30% slope made the challenge become harder.
“In terms of difficulty and finish time, it is similar to 100 mile mountain race. I finished the challenge in more than 31 hours with aching legs and rewarding feelings that I made it. I hope more and more people will do this challenge in the future.”
In terms of gear, Quang wore the Salomon S Lab Sense 7 for this challenge.
Quang plans to do more Everestings, including Old Monkey/Khi Gia in Danang together with Topas Director of Sport, David Lloyd, who has done three bike Everestings previously.
“Wrynose Pass in England was catergorically the hardest to date and while I don’t expect Khi Gia to be harder, it will definitely be tougher than Giong, my most recent. Doing it with Quang on his birthday will make Khi Gia a special one,” said David.
“What Quang has done on Ba Den is exceptional. Everesting on trail and also descending it is an incredible feat that few in the world have done on this level of technical gradient.”