A nature lover born to be outdoors
It was six in the morning as Lucina Lo set off for her morning romp through Tai Mo Shan Country Park. In her shiny sports suit, she appeared a tiny elf, floating aloft, as her slight frame seemed to flicker through the verdant woodlands sweeping up and down the mountainsides.
She climbed stone stairways in their sometimes nearly vertical ascents, pounded the soft surfaces of side roads and inched her way across the hilly slopes, seeming to pick up speed as she went.
“Mind your step,” a voice from nowhere warned. Alarm showed on the face of an elderly stroller as he admonished her to slow down.
“Thank you,” Lo replied with a smile, never breaking her stride.
The abbreviated, friendly exchanges, sometimes with total strangers, are part of what makes life on the trails worthwhile for Lo on her morning runs. Even the casual “hello” is a pleasant contrast to the preoccupied faces and frantic rush in urban Hong Kong.
In the wilderness, seemingly a thousand miles from the roar of city life, people speak to nature and nature speaks to them, says Lo. People become different away from the rat race and the cold, concrete jungle, where light barely shines through amid soaring skyscrapers. Lo says she was born to be outdoors.
Lo has been running for 16 years. In the first seven years, her long strides carried her through the streets and alleys and the running tracks of Hong Kong. Then, in 2008, she discovered a new reality — inside country parks. Up in the mountains, her spirits become refreshed. It’s a revelation so thoroughgoing she calls it a miracle.
“Running on mountains brings in varied beauty, which is totally different form running on the road,” says Lo. Over the years, she has been running like an athlete in training, whether in spring or autumn, through downpour and blistering heat, at dawn and in the dark of the night. The blooming wild lilies in summer, the mix of reds and deep oranges in autumn, the murmurs of the flying silver grass in blue-grey dawns, all of which make her feel she’s a part of the changing environment.
Lo, generally, separates her cross-country running into three steps. “I feel my body consumes the most energy while I’m climbing. I fill up with food and water at the peak and then set it free by running really fast downhill.” Her eyes shine as she describes the experience. Each step is endowed with a different celebration of life as she tests her endurance against the elements of the wild.
Cross-countr y running adds vitality to Lo’s life. The people she meets on the way, the plants she pass by have all become life’s treasures that she values most.
She met her husband, surnamed Li, out on a run. It was he who introduced her to cross-country running. In that shared interest, they’ve set out to crest every peak of the mountain terrain, which gives Hong Kong its true character as the “Pearl of the Orient”. In their quest, the couple has drawn closer together, finding the direction to guide them through difficulties, with the endurance of a long-distance runner.
Lo sees country parks as a refuge for all people. Few people who live in the city are more than an hour’s ride from a country park, so everyone can answer the call of the wild.
It’s only in recent years that the spirit has begun to catch on as more and more people recognize the value of country parks and take a common stand to protect and preserve the vital wilderness that forms part of Hong Kong’s soul.
“While we benefit, we should give too,” says Lo.