Chin's International Ultra Q&A

In what is quite possibly one of the most incredible achievements by any STAC member, Chin Yong represented Malaysia at the 2026 IAU 24 Hour Asia and Oceania Championships in Hirosaki City, Japan. The club is fortunate enough to have had several England Masters athletes, but Chin is the first International Senior runner.

The event itself sees the best ultra runners from all acoss Asia doing as many 1.25km laps they can in a 24 hour period. Chin came a remarkable 12th overall with 190 laps. That's 150 miles, for context a little under doing six 4 hour marathons back to back! 

For anyone who doesn’t know, can you tell us a bit about the race?

At its core, a 24-hour race is exactly what it sounds like. You run as far as possible for an entire day and night, but the catch is you’re doing it on a painfully short, predetermined loop.

To make it an official race, an adjudicator from the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) has to be present. They stalk the course to ensure everything is strictly measured and meets their rigorous standards—mostly to guarantee that no one is cutting corners in the delirium of 3:00 AM.

Just like the recent craze with backyard ultras, local 24-hour events are popping up all over the world. But at the pointy end of the sport, there are two major international showdowns alternating every two years: the World Championships and the Asian/Oceania Championships.

Each country’s committee selects their most stubborn athletes to represent them—up to 18 runners per nation (9 men, 9 women). The fascinating part is that the qualifying criteria are essentially a postcode lottery dictated by funding. For example, Team New Zealand sets a 150km minimum standard to qualify, but those poor souls are expected to self-fund their entire trip and their support crew. Team Malaysia, on the other hand, demanded a brutal 200km qualifier. Why? Because we actually received a small grant to help cover accommodation. Apparently, a free bed is going to cost you 50 extra kilometers of suffering! (Though our shiny race uniforms, thankfully, were covered by private sponsors).

What was the event, where was it held, and which countries were represented?

The 2026 Asian/Oceania Championships were held in Hirosaki, up in the Aomori prefecture of northern Japan. Fun fact: this region is essentially the holy land of apples. It’s the birthplace of the famous Fuji apple, and the locals lean into it hard. Forget craft beer—here, you do tasting flights of artisanal apple juices, paired with apple pie, and washed down with apple ice cream. It is an incredibly wholesome, picturesque backdrop for the sheer physical devastation we were about to inflict upon ourselves.

But back to the running! There were 8 countries participating in this edition including heavyweights - India, Australia and Japan. Being my first international team event, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. You’d think a continental championship would be intensely cutthroat, but here is the beautiful truth about a 24-hour race: everyone knows that, eventually, we are all going to suffer horribly.

That impending doom creates an incredible sense of camaraderie. Aside from a few fiercely talented front-runners, everyone was motivating each other. We were actively cheering for opposing countries, and rival support crews were happily passing supplies back and forth. It’s less of a traditional footrace and more of a multinational trauma bond.

Team Malaysia was tiny. Thanks to that ridiculously high, unfunded qualification bar I mentioned earlier, we only had three athletes. We were almost certainly the smallest squad on the track, but my two teammates were absolute powerhouses:

 * **Allison Walker:** In a bizarre twist of fate, Allison actually lives over in Heptonstall! We somehow never managed to cross paths in the UK, meaning it took traveling 5,500 miles to a running track in northern Japan for us to finally meet. She’s a phenomenal runner who holds the Malaysian female 24-hour record (211.955 km) and previously took first place in the 215-mile Race Across Scotland.

 * **Mohd Fazlie:** An ASICS-sponsored athlete who spends his time hunting down podiums in the suffocating heat of Southeast Asia. His idea of a training run is intentionally doing his long runs under the midday tropical sun at 36°C+ (97°F) just to ensure he is more heat-adapted than his opponents. 

How did you qualify to represent your country at an international 24-hour event?

It was less of a formal athletic pathway and more of an accidental recruitment via social media stalking. Malaysia was actively looking for a male representative, but because I live abroad in the UK and kept a low profile running European trail races, I was entirely off their radar.

The breadcrumb trail started when I won a 100-miler on Penang Island while back in Malaysia visiting my parents. That got me a few friend requests from local runners. But it wasn't until I finished the 135-mile UK Canal Race that my name somehow trickled up to the national committee. I suddenly got a mysterious Facebook message saying they wanted to speak with me. I'm notoriously hard to get hold of, so we eventually "upgraded" to WhatsApp, where they asked me  if i was interested in representing Malaysia.

The catch? I only had two or three months to qualify. That meant I needed to urgently find an official IAU 24-hour race and log at least 200km.

To my shock, running in circles for an entire day is a hot commodity. These races book up months in advance and some even use lottery systems. Thankfully, my newly discovered teammate Allison stepped in and helped me find a qualifying race in November in Germany.

Now, I genuinely hate this race format, but I cannot resist a risky venture. The race website was entirely in German. It was located deep in the German heartland. The tiny village I stayed in nearby consisted of exactly three things: a pub, a bakery, and a pizzeria. Because I missed the last train and there was a complete absence of taxis, I spent an hour dragging my heavy duffel bag through a moonlit pine forest just to reach my Airbnb. Honestly, that Blair Witch-style hike was more memorable than the race itself.

On race day, I was completely solo and uncrewed. By hour 24, my tiny personal aid station looked less like an athlete's pit area and more like a raccoon had tipped over a garbage bin. But despite the chaos, I managed to place third with 222.9km. (It was technically further, but I didn't speak enough German to understand the specific instructions for the final partial lap!).

When the race ended, I realized I’d made a repeat critical error - there isnt any taxis to get back to my airbnb. Thankfully, I had struck up a friendship with another runner on the track who—in the most bizarre twist of fate imaginable—happened to be Angela Merkel's nephew. I traded him some ultrarunning advice in exchange for a lift back to civilization.

And with that i qualified for the Asian Championships.

What did your training look like in the build-up? Was it very different from normal marathon or ultra training?

Honestly? I didn't train properly for either of these 24-hour races.

For the initial qualifier in Germany, I had a two-month crash course consisting of treadmill monotony, endless Zone 2 plodding, and trying to shed weight. But my true passion is running new races and doing club events, so I stubbornly prioritized those instead. I was softly told off by the Malaysian committee, who reminded me that Team GB athletes have to sign strict contracts swearing they won't race for three months prior to a championship. Thankfully, the Malaysian approach is much more relaxed, so I just carried on thrashing my legs every weekend. I did try to pivot to "serious" 24-hour track training right after the Leeds Marathon, but with less than two weeks to go before the main event, I was really only fooling myself.

As for how it differs from a normal ultra, 24-hour track racing is a completely different beast:

• Zero Navigation or Obstacles: You aren't going to trip over a rogue boulder or get lost running into the wrong farmer's field.

• Relentless Repetition: The trade-off for that safety is biomechanical torture. You are running on continuous, flat, hard ground, using the exact same motion and the exact same muscles non-stop.

• The Cost of Stopping: Any break is a penalty. If you want to drink, change your shoes, or go for a number two, the clock keeps ticking. Lost time equals lost kilometers.
  
  

Because of this, training *should* involve a lot of trial and error. You have to incorporate walking breaks early if you aren't used to running continuously, just to delay the inevitable muscular damage. Gut training is also paramount. From my mountain racing, I knew I could survive on gels alone for hours. Plus, since I was trapped in a highly monitored loop, I could risk pushing the nutrition—if I puked, I wouldn't get hypothermia on a remote ridge; I'd just do it safely on the side of a track.

I also spent a lot of time practicing taking shits with a stopwatch.

...No, I'm kidding. I just wanted to see if you were still reading. As any seasoned runner knows, it's mostly race-induced diarrhea anyway, so speed is guaranteed.

A quick word of warning, though: if you ever see a sign for "Japanese toilets" at a race, be aware that these are traditional squat toilets. I don’t know if it's the sheer delirium or the fact that our quads were entirely destroyed, but some 24-hour runners should absolutely *not* be allowed to use them. Let's just say a few people missed the hole in the ground completely, and leave it at that.

Before the race, what was it like being part of an international event? Were there team meetings, kit checks, opening ceremonies, or anything that made it feel different from a normal race?
On paper, it was highly formal. I didn't dare turn up late but tend to anyway. However, the entire Malaysian team completely missed the bus to the opening ceremony as well, so I quickly realised I was in excellent company. One of our group even managed to get staggeringly drunk the night before and had to be sent to the hospital, followed by a series of hiccups where at one point I was flagged down by the police whilst on a shakeout run at night and escorted in a police vehicle to the hospital to identify this colleague. Let's be honest, everyone prefers a good chaotic story over flawless, German-style punctuality anyway.

The day before the race was a packed schedule, kicking off with the mandatory technical meeting and race briefing. Because the rest of us had... "stuff to do," and the main person was in hospital, Team Malaysia sent exactly one representative. Unfortunately, he was also somewhat hangover, so his brilliant delegation strategy was to take photos of the presentation slides and drop them in our WhatsApp group. Shockingly, this method failed, and we missed one or two absolutely crucial race details that we only discovered at the very end of the 24 hours.

Once we finally made it to the opening ceremony in a massive gymnasium, it was incredible. We paraded in front of spectators, the mayor of Hirosaki came out to show his support, and local traditional arts performers put on a show. We felt incredibly privileged to be there.

The day concluded with the traditional pre-race "pasta party"—except we were in Japan, so it heavily featured glorious sushi and sashimi. There was also an open bar with free-flowing alcohol. As athletes, we could only sit there with dead, envious eyes, watching the staff and support crews guzzle down glasses of merriment while we sipped our water.

Race day itself hit entirely differently. We arrived hauling massive boxes of nutrition out of taxis and finally laid eyes on the course. For this looped course, it involves running a lap of the stadium track, head out and then a run outside the perimeters of the stadium past the support tents, and loop back in. Flanking the start line were giant digital clocks and two massive screens displaying exactly how much distance every passing runner had covered. It was brilliantly intimidating.

The Japanese work ethic and hospitality were unbelievable. The championship ran alongside an open race category for individual entries, and the official staff were borderline magical. They had tables with dozens of serving trays for the open race participants. Even with 30+ personal cups per tray, the volunteers would memorize what each runner wanted and have their cup perfectly refilled and waiting for them the next time they came around.

Then there was the first aid tent, manned by four Japanese women who cheered, smiled, and jumped up and down for what seemed like a physically impossible amount of time. My logical brain knows they must have taken turns, but I swear it was the exact same enthusiastic voice cheering for me at 5:00 PM, 2:00 AM, and 7:00 AM. Even our dedicated team translator was pulling 12-hour shifts, taking an Uber home for a quick meal and a 6-hour power nap, and then Ubering right back to the track for the final 6-hour slog and closing ceremony held later on in the day.

As for kit checks? There were none, mostly because there is no kit. The rules are beautifully simple: no communication devices, a timing chip on each leg, and keep your bib visible. There are some rulings as well about super-cheat shoes.

Talk us through the race itself. How did it go from the start through to the final hours?

Coming into this with a support crew, fantastic teammates, and the traumatic survival experience of my German qualifier, I knew pacing was absolutely everything. Science tells us that elite marathoners achieve the best times by maintaining a strictly constant pace. However, trying to apply that perfectly logical science to a 24-hour race is like trying to do algebra while falling down a flight of stairs.

I have a terrible habit of setting off way too fast regardless of the distance. Because this was a once-in-a-lifetime championship experience, I decided to just let myself have that brief, delusional moment of glory at the start line, with the strict promise to reel it in as soon as the pack started breaking apart.

After that, it became a desperate mental game of holding the wagon together. My mantra was: The first 12 hours are just a warm-up to the actual start line. I had to save my legs for the real race.

Eventually, the novelty wore off. Fatigue clamped down on the entire field, and those intelligent, sociable chats quickly devolved into unintelligible gibberish as everyone started frantically tapping into their emergency energy reserves just to keep moving.

By the 12-hour mark, the track had thinned out dramatically, which is when the tactical confusion really set in. Having the open race running alongside the championship was baffling. You’d get demoralized by a runner absolutely flying past you, only to realize they were just sprinting a few fast loops before disappearing to take a nap, miraculously reappearing hours later for another speed session.

The Japanese national team, meanwhile, deployed a terrifying all-or-nothing strategy: absolutely zero walking breaks. You were either stopped in the tent, or you were running on the track. They even had a 2:12 marathoner on the team who would blast out 4-minute kilometers, vanish into the ether to rest, and then come back to do it again. It was completely impossible to figure out where anyone actually placed in the standings because you were not allowed phones and seemed to be constantly lapped by the same few sprinters!

You covered around 150 miles, which is about 190 laps. Mentally, how do you even begin to process that during the race? Do you break it down, switch off, focus on time, or something else?

If you want to perform at your absolute limit in a race like this, you have to start by setting a target that seems utterly absurd and far out of reach, but is theoretically possible. Then, you work backward to figure out how to survive it.

But alongside setting those massive goals, you have to learn how to fail—something society teaches very poorly. Whether it’s targeting a sub-3 marathon, getting straight A's, or starting a business, you shouldn't expect to nail it on the first try, or even the tenth. Failing isn't the end; it is literally part of the plan. It is highly personalized research data, which, in my opinion, is better than top-tier scientific evidence. You have to learn to laugh at the failures, mine them for data, and cherish the experience.

When it comes to the mental math of the race itself, I survive by constantly dividing things in half. Because I know I always set off too fast, I use this mental framework to counteract it:

 *Hours 0 - 12:** The Warm-up.

 *Hours 12 - 18:** The 6-hour Jog.

 *Hours 18 - 21:** The 3-hour Preparation to Race.

 *Hours 21 - 22.5:** The 90-minute Race.

 *Hours 22.5 - 23.25:** The 45-minute "Maintain No Matter What."

 *Hours 23.25 - 24:** The final 45 minutes to empty the tank until I physically break.

While many experienced runners hate the distraction of a GPS watch on a track, I actually set mine to beep and announce every single kilometer. I crave the distraction. I become obsessive about the data: I analyze the pace of each kilometer and compare it against my perceived effort. On the next loop, I’ll tweak something—maybe a slight gait adjustment—to see if it lowers my effort while maintaining the pace.

It becomes a game of extreme micro-management: Am I running the optimal racing line? Where are my strategic walking breaks? Exactly how many seconds am I losing every time I grab a drink? Has my stride become inefficient because I'm struggling with a new niggle?

As for audio distractions, I follow a strict schedule. I start with absolutely nothing in my ears. Once the silence gets too loud, I switch to podcasts or audiobooks. Eventually, I hit a point of fatigue where my brain can no longer process actual human speech, and that’s when I swap to aggressive music to drag me through the final, darkest bits of the race.

At any point did you think, “I’m done here”? And if so, what kept you moving?

Honestly? Nope. At no point was I ever willing to throw in the towel.

I’ve reached a stage where i feel that running for 24 hours is something i can do, only because I've done races that last much longer.

The human brain is delightfully gullible. Once you break a massive personal barrier, something fundamental flips inside your head and completely ruins your perception of normal. It actively tricks you into believing you can just endure that level of suffering again and again. For a bit of terrifying context: the longest continuous running effort I’ve ever done is 42 hours, and the longest I’ve ever stayed awake is 54 hours.

For the race, the main difficulty was judging what would be the correct average pace for 24 hours as opposed to x amount of km with x amount of elevation. At what sustained effort would the tank be empty exactly at 24 hours.

You finished 12th, which is an incredible result. Was that better than you expected, or did you know you were capable of that kind of performance?

It was definitely a huge surprise! I knew I had a strong race in me, but placing 12th in an international championship field completely exceeded my expectations.

That being said, I did suffer a catastrophic failure of basic mathematics in the final hour. By that point, my brain was essentially functioning at the level of a tired toddler, and I had calculated that hitting the 240km mark was completely mathematically impossible. I had made my peace with it.

But then, to my absolute shock, I rounded the final corner and saw the inside of the stadium again... with maybe 30 seconds left on the massive digital clock.

Cue absolute panic. I suddenly realized that 240km was *right there*. I broke into a desperate, flailing sprint, frantically shouting at all the early celebrators—who were already happily walking and flag waving on the track— asking them to get out of my way like a madman trying to catch a departing train when everybody had already begun celebrating the destination.

Sadly, it was too late, and the final horn blew just before I could cross the line. But honestly, sprinting through a crowd of oblivious runners screaming "Move!" is a pretty fitting way to end 24 hours of sheer madness. Plus my wife and sister were waiting at the end laughing as i was bent over panting and pointing at the ‘finish line’ just meters away from me. That view I will cherish forever (not the finish line in case i had to clarify that). 

Tell us about the nutrition side. We all saw the mountain of gels you took with you — did you actually get through them all? And what else did you eat and drink over 24 hours?

Yes, the legends are true. I was throwing back a 40g carb gel every 30 minutes like absolute clockwork. If you do the math on that, it means I successfully ingested roughly three liters of pure, synthetic energy goo over the course of the day. Strava informed me that I burned 17,000 calories, so the engine demands what the engine demands!

It wasnt all gels though. My goto race food are just wraps with any semi solid - oil/salt/protein as fillings. Such as tuna in oil, chopped olives, hummus, avocado smash. I only managed 4 small wraps the entire race though as nausea set in by hour 16 due to exhaustion.

The main downside to strictly relying on gels is that your body becomes an entirely sugar-dependent machine. I actually learned this the hard way after a 40km "B race" near my home. I had fueled perfectly for the race, but I completely forgot to account for the fact that I still had to jog 5km back to my house. Without my drip-feed of gels, I developed severe hypoglycemia in record time. I staggered through my front door like an extra in a zombie movie and literally could not formulate words. After downing a sugary drink, I was back to being a normal, functioning human within two minutes.

It was a terrifying but incredibly useful learning experience. Much like diabetics who develop hypoglycemic awareness, I now have an internal alarm system. I used that hyper-awareness during this 24-hour race to realize exactly when my blood sugar might be dropping because I’d forgotten to take a scheduled gel (which happened twice during the peak delirium hours).

There is a whole lot more dark science to fueling these ridiculous events, but honestly, this write-up is already long enough, and I'm fairly sure I've already convinced most of you to stick to a nice, sensible 10k!

Who else was in the race? Were there any big names from the ultra-running world on the start line?

Phil gore - Backyard ultra record holder at 119 laps. 24 hour track run record holder for Oceania.

Miho Nakata - Made world news when she broke female 24 hour track record in 2023 at 270km.

Amar Devanda - champion and record holder for Asia - 24hr track run - Brooks sponsored athlete. He won again and broke his own record.

I dont quite know the others despite them being accomplished runners and some professionally sponsored as I am more familiar with european/US athletes. 

What happened straight after the race finished? Could you walk? Sleep? Eat? Or was it all a bit of a blur?

Surprisingly, the immediate aftermath wasn't a complete horror show! Considering how grueling the previous 24 hours had been, it was a minor miracle that—save for those nursing specific injuries—most of the championship field could actually still walk.

The organizers even wrangled us all for a formal closing ceremony at 5:00 PM. So, instead of collapsing into an immediate coma, my teammates and I did the most glamorous thing possible for elite international athletes: we went to do our laundry. After getting the absolute worst of the track grime out of our kit, we hit up the hotel's incredible (and thankfully, fully paid for) buffet lunch to begin the massive calorie-replenishment process.

Sleep, however, is always a cruel joke after an ultra. I finally went to bed at 10:00 PM, fully expecting to hibernate, only to ping wide awake exactly two hours later. Your central nervous system gets so completely fried by the effort that the classic "post-race insomnia" kicks in. I had terribly disturbed sleep for the next two days, which is entirely counterproductive for recovery.

But there wasn't much time to lie around resting anyway. The very next morning, we kicked off an 8-day road trip back down to Tokyo. Naturally, our itinerary included several "small hikes,"

Work hard, play harder, right?

How do you recover from something like that — physically and mentally? Is it days, weeks, or longer before you feel normal again?

The recovery generally happens in two distinct phases. The first hurdle is overcoming the immediate DOMS and the million little micro-tears in your legs. Back when I first started running ultras, I’d be forced to walk backwards down stairs for a solid week. Now? My body has absorbed so much trauma over the years that, depending on the race effort, I can theoretically be back to a light jog in just two days. The best physical recovery is honestly just to keep moving and walking about (hence the immediate hiking trip). Good sleep would also be phenomenal, assuming your fried nervous system actually lets you have any.

The second, much sneakier hurdle is the deep, underlying fatigue. You will be walking around the house feeling totally fine, but the second you try to actually run, your body just refuses like a stubborn child.

If you look at your heart rate data during this phase, it's fascinating—you literally cannot get your heart rate up. No matter how hard you push, the engine simply refuses to rev. Overcoming that central fatigue takes a bit longer, usually anywhere from a week to a full month, depending on how deep into the pain cave you went on race day.

Given the sheer, relentless effort of this 24-hour track ordeal, I’m banking on it taking a full month before I feel truly normal again. During this hibernation period, cross-training becomes my best friend. I just resign myself to the gym, focus entirely on strength training, and patiently wait for my legs to finally forgive me.

After representing your country and finishing 12th in an international 24-hour race, what comes next?

Sub 2:45 marathon

Itra score >750 

Other than that I have no idea. Probably work more shifts to fund this hobby.