Penang Eco 100 Review
Penang Eco 100 will be 5 years old by June 2019.
First launched in Aug 2015, Penang ECO 100 is the 1st ever ultra trail event in West Malaysia with 50km and 100km category. In the 2nd year of May 2016, an additional category of 100 miles was added. In the 3rd year of 2017, an additional category of 30km was added.
Held in Bukit Mertajam (Penang, Malaysia), the 30km, 50km and 100km categories start from the eco village of Sungai Lembu, taking runners through oil palm plantations, rubber plantations, pineapple plantations, several Malay kampungs Chinese new villages, and Indian temples, paddy fields, the challenging hills of Seraya, Mengkuang, and the by now iconic Tokun Hills. This race showcases the typical Malaysian geographical, social and cultural heritage where the runners will meet and see ordinary Malaysian people and wild lives, flora and fauna in the rural settings with a distinct small town feel. During the race, the runners will be sampling the local cuisines in the food and drinks provided at the aid stations along the course of the race.
This is designed to be an international race, with the objectives of attracting foreign and out of state runners to visit Bukit Mertajam. The 2018 edition has attracted close to 200 foreign participants from 25 countries. Total participants for all categories have grown from 377 in 2015 to 966 in 2018.
Penang Eco 100 is part of the Asia Trail Master series, being accorded the status of Super Trail of Asia Trail Master for the last 3 years, and will continue to be a Super Trail in 2019. All the race categories of 30km, 50km, 100km and 100 miles earns qualifying points for Ultra Trail Mont Blanc (UTMB) and Ultra Trail Mount Fuji (UTMF) as well for 2019. We are committed to ensure that Penang Eco 100 will continue to be part of Asia Trail Master, and to be a qualifying race for future editions of UTMB. Furthermore, Penang Eco 100 is also a member of the RunTheWorld ultra races series.
Features & Purpose
The Penang Eco 100 utilised the Premium Package for their main 100 mile event. It was made made mandatory for all runners to carry a tracker enabling full 100% coverage of runner locations.
Integration with Facebook & Instagram
Event Partner Banners
Embedded video - last year’s event platform
Replay function
Timing / Leaderboard - auto generated from Geolocation
The replay function was widely used by the race director;
Caught a runner that looked to have rested and been driven to the next check point
Validated to a runner they had missed a whole section - was driven back to start of missing section and driven back after it was completed
The Geolocation timing was often more up to date than the official timing of the race. As a person isn’t required to “scan” a runner at a CP times were automatically created via the tracker so no runner was missed
Provided significant excitement to the female race as the top 4 runners were all within 20min of each other in the last section. Tracking provided a live TV aspect to their race and provided excitement from the trail otherwise impossible
Additionally, having tracking on all runners meant the race leader could take a look at a check point to see where his nearest rival was. He was more than 2hrs behind so he knew he could relax
Settings for the event started at 6-min intervals however, by early morning of the race with good signal, placement on the runner and no blocking due to overhanging foliage, batter life was excellent. Tracker intervals soon dropped to 3min before the last 24hrs were on between 60-120s depending on location of the runner