On Day 2 of the ATM 500 - Run Asia, Run Virtual team challenge expectations were exceeded again as no fewer than 13 teams completed the full distance on Tuesday, in another show of dedication, enthusiasm and sheer health in these difficult times. We cannot look past it, yesterday Rie Sugaya was the quickest as only woman in her Team BSK Marina Loopers, and today the Hong Kong’s Trail Girls on Fire clocked the fastest time of all finishing teams ! Our reigning Asia Trail Master Champion Veronika Vadovicova is obviously inspiring a lot of women with her new ‘Asia Trail Girls’ project, launched two weeks ago in her new home Hong Kong. The Slovakian herself was in excellent shape the past two days, too. Today she ran a 3:30 marathon on the back of a 7:27 ultra of 76km in very wet conditions yesterday! Estzer Csillag, whom we know from last year’s appearance and victory in the Magnificent Merapoh Trail in Malaysia, was equally impressive in doing 117 km in a time of 12 hours 13 minutes spread over two days. Nikki Han clocked 120 km in 13:07 and ultra distance specialist Habiba Benahmed took the team’s largest share of 142km and did it in 16:28! A total time for the team of 52:49:39 or an average speed of 9.46 km/h. Very few teams will break that time in the next 12 days….

On our leaderboard of the day we see the OCR Pilipinas II Team in second place with a total time of 58:16:48. The team was pushed forward by a very active and resilient Kyle Antolin, who took the lion’s share of 178 km and with quick legs, too! In fact, the second OCR Pilipinas Team required less time to complete the 500km than the number one team featuring 2016 ATM Champion Manolito Divina -nice seeing him back in action- and Sandi Menchi, a winner of 5 ATM races during her running career.

There were more finishers in the Philippines today. Team Heal As One Runners flew a bit under the radar as the four team members do not immediately ring a bell on the ATM circuit. Ha Ro, Han Lei, Doc Roman and Frankie Lobino: congratulations!

Team Mace and Team Vitargo PH also concluded their ATM 500 Challenge, making it five filipino squads in total. No other country does better. And it’s not like SIngapore, Indonesia, Malaysia or Thailand are not trying! The BSK Underdogs (Singapore) and the MKRC Boleh! teams basically only had to a cool down after their 400+K runs on Monday. In Thailand, Team THAI - notably also with three women - and Team Asia I reached the virtual finish line in great style. The first team contains the well-known names of Cartoon Wipawee, Grandmasters Montha Suntornwit and Wasing Monghkolmalee, and Mum Kanlaya. The second team Asia I is a happy introduction to four new faces as well: Kim, Nok, Al and Seung.

Over in Indonesia, Team Arjuno led by in-form Bali-based German Thimo Kilberth and the promising young talent of Christin Mutia came home in a strong time of 58:35:17. That’s marginally slower than OCR Pilipinas 2 for fourth place on the results board. The team also has Akhmad Nizar and Mikha Muliawan in its ranks. Another Indonesian squad, Team Ba-Tam Ultra Runners, showed that yesterday’s 7th place on the leaderboard was no coincidence. Santih Gunawan, Fifi Bonefacia, Hui Tjen, Sansan Sanjawan ran the required additional 135km today to finish in a time 71:52:49.

Team Challenger from Malaysia with ATM regulars Mohamed Affindi, Jeffrey Budin, Sugeng Asianto and Izzah Hazirah succeeded as well today.

In terms of running speed, interestingly enough we now have Team Uglow Asia I setting the fastest pace! That’s another team based in Hong Kong featuring Elsa Jean de Dieu, Paul Fornier, Bryan Crane and Guillaume Perrot. With an AVS of 11.25 km/h they perform marginally quicker than Sherpa’s Angels with 11.05 km/h. At present, the team is “only” at the km 327 mark, though, while the team built around Alessandro Sherpa and John Ellis is at km 378. Another new appearance in this list of teams who have completed more than 250 km is Tokyo Nomad. That’s a quartet led by the famous Tomohiro Mizukoshi. They have been running around Japan’s capital city with an average speed of 10.75 km/h over 315 km.

Current Results Board ATM 500

Full team overview via the Google Page summary

ATM 500 Results board (teams who ran 250+ km)

The all-ladies quartet set the trails in Hong Kong on fire over the past two days!

Malaysia’s Team MKRC Boleh! ran home after clocking 400k already yesterday

ATM 500 - DAY 2 Report: Trail Girls On Fire!

Current Results Board ATM 500