Written by Jamie Mackinnon, Saturday 3rd Dec 2011
Oh my Buddha

I have said for the last year I would run the Big Buddha hill before I left Thailand and today was the day it happened. The Big Buddha hill is a 4.5Km from the starting point of the Monkey show at the bottom.

Last week I said to myself that all going well in my Muay Thai fight on wednesday I would run the Big Buddha on Sat morning. I knew doing it alone would be harder to motivate myself to get it done so I got my mate Sean involved to join in on the fun. So after getting through my fight with no injuries myself and Sean agreed to get up before the sun (to make it a little easier) and start to run by the back of 6am.

5.45am this morning the alarm goes I wake up ready and raring to go NOT. Made that call to Sean where I am kind of thinking if he doesn’t answer thats my excuse to get out haha Well he answered and we set off taking his motorbike to the top slowly realising what we had got ourself in for as we made the ride up. It seemed like it was taking forever to make it to the top and that was us just dropping off his bike, we dropped off the bike and made our way back down to the start. The ride down was a silent as we must of both been trying to mentally prepare ourself for what was ahead. We got to the Monkey show starting point, looked at each other took one last deep breathe and went for it.

I’ll not lie it started off being a real struggle and after the first big incline my legs were giving up and we stopped and walked a little before setting off, after that it got a bit easier as we caught our second wind. We ran up the inclines and walked a little on the flat and made one last sprint to the top on the last incline. We made it and it felt good :)

We ran up and were rewarded with the amazing views, which made the early rise worth it.

Here’s a video of the last fight that made us decide to do the run

Now a relaxing day at the beach and sight seeing with my Mum :)