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Kindred Spirits! Running Up That Hill

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Maggie Cvetkovic and Chris Davis found their running groove in Hong Kong and a reason to live in Discovery Bay. Now the Action Asia vets are taking aim at Spartan. Elizabeth Kerr reports

PHOTOS BY Richard Gordon – www.richardgordonphotography.com

Magdalena – Maggie – Cvetkovic and Chris Davis are a well-matched pair. Slight and sinewy, the Discovery Bay bankers (she’s with Société Générale, he’s at UBS) look remarkably cool, sit ting sipping decaf on a Tuesday afternoon in the height of the year ’s last heatwave.

“I like it warm. This is my dream. I love the heat. I like going for a run at lunchtime when it’s 34 degrees,” Maggie says, without a hint of irony. “I love stepping out of the flat and sweating without even doing anything. That’s how it needs to be,” she finishes with a chuckle.

Chris sits quietly, not quite throwing a side-eye, but close. He’s not as into the swelter as Maggie is, but if that’s the way it is in DB, he’s OK with it. For the Devon native, DB’s small town vibe is ideal. “This suits me,” he says, entirely low-key. Both avid trail runners, the pair have just come off a 14-kilometre Action Asia Events Sprint on September 14, where he placed fifth and she placed third, and are currently training for a series of races in Hong Kong and around the region. They’ve come a long way in the 15 (for Maggie) and 11 (for Chris) years they’ve lived in Hong Kong, where they both picked up trail running in their their ties.

AT HOME ON THE TRAILS

Maggie and Chris have been living in DB for under a year, though Maggie did a stint here in 2008.

She arrived first, fresh from her native Zurich after accepting a hedge fund job in Hong Kong. “I had two job offers, one in New York and one in Hong Kong. I always wanted to try living in Asia and, really, what’s the worst that can happen? I don’t like it and I go home,” she recalls.

The duo relocated from Sai Ying Pun and credit DB’s wide open spaces, water views and trails for keeping them sane during the last 30 months. After taking up running and then getting used to flying all over the world to compete, the last couple of years have been practically sedentary.

“Last year in December we wanted to go to Mui Wo and we took the wrong ferry,” begins Maggie, describing the move. “We ended up in DB and thought no problem, we’ll just go over Tiger’s Head and do whatever we were planning to do. And just going up the stairs we looked around and thought,
it’s time to move back here.”

“We were quite happy with our two dogs in Sai Ying Pun,” adds Chris. “But lockdown was starting again and we came here and it was just so relaxing. We
have a bigger flat, a view of the sea, and it’s really not that far away. The dogs love it. The trails all have water along the way and they’re so happy to just go and go and go. That’s the beauty of living here. And I do not miss the constant noise, the constant hum of the city. It’s so peaceful here.”

“Every morning I wake up and I see the sea and hear the birds,” Maggie interjects. “it’s so beautiful. There’s no reason to leave.” “She loves the sound of seagulls,” Chris shoots back. “For me, that’s the worst.” Spoken like a true West Country man.

Landscape in post image 600x400

A WAY INTO HONG KONG

Still. Peace is important for a couple that’s usually up at around 5am for a morning run. In their words, when they’re not working, they’re training. Next up is Action Asia’s Lantau 2 Peaks on October 3, and the Lantau 50 in January. Lantau 50 (Maggie and Chris have opted for the toughest 54km course) takes runners up and over both Lantau and Sunset peaks, with an elevation gain of 3,130m and a12-hour cut-off… No easy feat.

All this begs the question: How did they get into this? The short answer is by getting a look at Hong Kong. For Maggie, the longer version comes down to a hike she went on around Sunset Peak shortly after arriving all those years ago. “It was mind-blowing,” she recalls. “I just remember people running up the stairs, and I was super-unfit at the time, and I asked them what they were doing. They told me they were not hikers, that they were trail runners, training for an Action Asia race. That was it.”

The combination of the view from the top and watching these runners flit up the hill was enough to get her started. The story is similar for Chris, involving just a bit more curiosity. He’d never been to Hong Kong before getting transferred for work, and knew next to nothing about it. The trails were his way in. “I wanted to explore,” he says simply. “Once you start looking at trail maps it becomes, ‘I want to see Repulse Bay but I don’t want to just get in a taxi. How do I run there?’ So I started doing that, and there are trails that go absolutely everywhere. The more you see, the more you want to see. And it’s a great antidote to being stuck in the city.”

A splash-n-dash race soon followed, and after placing fairly well on his first try, Chris started looking for more events. One thing led to another and by the time they met – on the UBS Dragon Boating squad – they were ready to be kindred running spirits.

ON THE BUCKET LIST

If things go well – fingers crossed quarantine restrictions ease up – Maggie and Chris will be off to Spartan Asia Pacific Championship Weekend in Thailand this November, and the World Championship in December in Abu Dhabi. Spartan, for those not in the know, is an obstacle course-based race series, akin to Iron Man (which Maggie has done). The couple ran their first Spartan race in 2016 and it’s since become their niche, with both eventually earning spots on the pro tour. Maggie still ranks. “I got dropped last year,” Chris says sheepishly. For the record, Maggie currently ranks 7,853 on Spartan’s 186,000-strong global leader board.

Maggie and Chris hope to start tackling their personal trail running bucket lists sooner rather than later, which include running up Kota Kinabalu (again), perhaps Kilimanjaro, the London Marathon, Spartan Hawaii – it’s held where Jurassic Park was shot, over a long weekend – and hitting the bottom of the Grand Canyon. But until then they plan to keep in fighting form with Action Asia’s events, and even casual local races.

“There’s always a race somewhere,” says Chris. “And we just do as much as possible. We came to trail running relatively late in our lives. I’m 41. Maggie’s… younger,” he trails off. “Forty!” she jumps in, loud and proud. “Finding a sport we’re excelling at makes us just want to maximise the time we have left. We’re still quite keen,” he finishes. Now if only they could remember how to pack.

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