Hitting Taiping Trails At TNF Malaysia Mountain Festival 2019

We've visited Taiping three times before for a race:

• 2012 for Taiping International Marathon
• 2013 and 2014 for King of Bukit Larut.

And after 5 years, we're back to join TNF Malaysia Mountain Festival (MMTF) 2019.

Photo credit: Fadil Othman/Pixeo

This is MMTF's second edition after last year's race and there was a slight format change compared to last year's edition.

Anyhoo, an introduction of Malaysia Mountain Trail Festival (MMTF):

The race is co-organized by MMTF Consultant, Jabatan Perhutanan Negeri Perak, Spritzer, Perdana Global Peace Foundation and Larut Matang Hash House Harriers and Harriets. It was held between 13th December 2019 – 15th December 2019 at Spritzer EcoPark, Taiping, Perak, West Malaysia.

MMTF 2019 took runners through 13KM, 25KM, 55KM and 84KM of pristine trails in Taiping with elevation gain of 610m, 1200m, 3100m and 4300m respectively.

There were three distance categories offered:

• The 13KM race - the new “Freshman Run” to cater the beginner runners
• The 25KM race was an upgraded course from the MMTF 2018 “15KM Freshman Run” and is the new “Ball Breaker Run”
• The 55KM race which was an upgraded course from MMTF 2018 “36KM Ball Breaker Run”
• The 84KM race which was an upgraded course from MMTF 2018 “70KM Ultra Challenge”.

We haven't been hitting much trails this year apart from joining The Magnificent Merapoh Trail in August and EcoTrail Putrajaya in October and with only some hikes which we did during our recent holiday to Japan. So with that in mind, we decided to take it easy and enjoy the 13K course of MMTF.

As per its name, the festival started in full swing on Friday with many runners coming in to Taiping but we were only able to go to Taiping on Saturday. That meant, we missed out on much of the festivities and also the welcome dinner which had been arranged by the organizer.

The organiser had kindly extended the REPC time and allow 13K participants to collect their race kit on Saturday evening and we arrived for the REPC just minutes before it closed at 4.30pm on Saturday.

Mandatory items check before we get a clearance and receive our bibs.

Here's a short video of some happenings at the race village on Saturday as winners for the Women 55K category and Male champion for 84K category crossed the finish line.

Getting to and fro the race venue from our hotel was easy as MMTF organizer had arranged for free shuttle buses to ferry runners from race venue to three participating hotels: Hotel Taiping Perdana, Legend Hotel and Novotel.

We made use of this service on Saturday and on race day on Sunday.

For the 13K category, we were flagged-off on Sunday at 7am.

Here's a glimpse of what 13K runners experienced.

With the highest elevation of less than 300m and with elevation gain of 610m, it wasn't too hard for those trying out trail running and not too easy that one could complain that it was boring! Hahaha

I have to say, the route marking was indeed excellent all throughout the 13K route.

Photo from MMTF website

Stopping for photo at the first "bukit", around KM3. This was at a durian orchard.

We saw so many fallen durians. Pity cannot eat them. Not because we were in a race (that never stopped us from eating durians at a race before) but because this was a privately owned durian orchard where permission was given to let runners pass the area but not to eat any durians! Hahaha

Later, we entered this tunnel before reaching the KM7 mark.

Interesting, right?

That's why we had headlamp as one of our mandatory items. Because we needed to pass through this pitch black tunnel.

After this tunnel, it was another uphill section.

"Syiok".

As you can see in the video, the red ribbons for trail markings were literally everywhere and hard to miss.

After some climb that seemed endless (but in actual fact was just less 1K in distance), we finally reached the peak before we continued with a downhill.

We later reached the CP at KM9.5 mark.

Thank you to those manning the CP here. They were all very supportive and attentive to runners needs.

Met a couple of friends who were on duty there too, and so glad to meet them!

We felt refreshed and eager to complete the balance of the route but hang on! There was another climb that we needed to tackle up ahead!

Hubby experienced a cramp as we were climbing up the hilly section after KM10 while I was getting my second wind. We had discussed about aiming for a sub3 finish earlier but then decided not to push.

It wasn't that we had pushed anyway, as we had agreed to hike the course and not run. Yup, we just walked (and occasionally jogged downhill for momentum).

It is our way to show that even those who feel they are too slow to join these kind of races that they can join the fun too!

We've walked in a 30K race and finished an hour before COT before!

But just make sure you train lah, otherwise can kena heart attack climbing up those hilly sections. Or at least, kena cramp kaw-kaw.

Crossing the finish line, we queued for our results slip which were then shown to the volunteers at the "Finisher Entitlements" booth to get our finisher medal.

Then it was time for refreshments! Literally all you can eat one!

Me, my nasi lemak and my medal.

We were blessed with a fine weather on race day so the run experience was nice.

For the 13K route, I certainly had no complaints whatsoever and thoroughly enjoyed myself (with the occasional obligatory cursing along the route).

Thank you to the race organizer, crew, volunteers and everyone involved for a great Sunday outing for us.

We certainly hope we can return to Taiping for TNF100 Malaysia next year!

Some videos taken before and during the race can be viewed at our Facebook page Cik Arnab  Kura-Kura and also our Youtube page.


Do FOLLOW and LIKE our page for more race updates, photos and daily running memes.