Race report: slipping and sliding in Krabi
When I signed up for the Krabi International Trail 2020, I expected there might be a lot of running through palm groves.
I knew there would be some mountain trails too.
There was also a lot more than I expected. For one, there was a lot of distance. I ran the 20 km race, which was actually measured at 22.8, and my watch had it at a little more than 24.
There was also a lot of traffic. At the 20 km distance, there were 271 runners—I finished 54th. I also caught up with a lot of the 15 km runners for the final 10 km of the race.
It has been raining quite a bit in southern Thailand, but I was still surprised at how wet and slippery the course was. I fell down three times in the first 6 km and then had another big crash at around 16 km. Not bad, considering the traffic and the terrain.
What else was more than I expected? There was a cave!
There were even more stream crossings than I had anticipated. I checked the route map a few times before the race so I could be prepared for where in the race I’d be crossing streams or rivers coming down out of the Khao Phanom Bencha National Park. On the map I’d seen just one river crossing, but there were a lot of smaller streams that I hadn’t seen on the map. It was a lot of fun, actually, to make so many crossings. I was soaking wet already, anyway.
The stream crossings made a nice break from the steep hill climbs in the final 5 km, as we went up above a spectacular waterfall in the national park.
And they helped wash off some of the mud too.
