Film

Breaking 60 | Challenging the Imposible

Breaking 60 is a documentary about the 2017 Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge.
 

About

Director

Robin Lee

Producer

Lost Atlas

Featuring

Andre Blumberg, Stone Tsang, Jag Lanante, Scottie Callaghan, Brendan Lee, John Ellis

Running time

45 minutes

Country / Nationality

Hong Kong

Our Judges say:

These runners are incredible that distance that elevation is just mind-blowing to me really great film that takes you through an incredible physical challenge.

Ed Birch Director of Salt-Street productions

Runners don’t miss this one, an extreme ultra running challenge. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be glad it’s not you running (but secretly wish you were!)

Anna Paxton

An insight into a super tough 300k (186 mile) ultra in Hong Kong, running four of their long distance hiking trails the other way round to their usual direction. There are beautiful shots of Japanese trails that will open your eyes to the stunning running and hiking opportunities there. And you will marvel at the strength of these runners as they battle sleep demons (and Japanese water machine dispensers) to crack this crazy race within the 60 hour cut off.

Claire Maxted Claire Maxted

Breaking 60 is a documentary about the 2017 Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge, a fat‐ass trail running event where there are no race fees, no prizes, no medals, no pats on the back for being super awesome. Just a bunch of slightly left field individuals trying to run all four of Hong Kong’s ultra trails ‐ totalling 298km ‐ non stop, unsupported and in less than 60 hours. 

Each year a small group of runners are hand selected and Breaking 60 explores the personal challenges facing 4 of them. Since its inception, nobody has ever gone sub 60. The HK4TUC is a unique personal challenge that requires a significant level of self sufficiency, strong determination, willingness to dig deep and suffer and it is a journey of self discovery over three days and (in most cases) three nights. 

The HK4TUC attracts unique individuals that are not interested in the increasing commercialism of ultrarunning races as there are no medals, prizes or rankings. The focus instead is on the challenge itself, the challenge to physically and, more importantly, mentally go to places the individual has not gone before. This is only for people who love pain and suffering and get a thrill out of attempting something that they deem impossible and they expect most likely to completely fail at. That's the reason why this Challenge was founded in 2012. Given the distance and elevation change involved, this event is targeted at the experienced trail running enthusiast. 

This is a very hard event and it challenges your strategy and self-pacing, and not necessarily just raw fitness. The idea is for this to be a community-driven, non-commercial, no-frills challenge. Breaking 60 beautifully documents this journey of four participants in the challenge.