Marathon event in the middle of Khao Yai NP with 3000 runners

I'm surprised this has been given the green light with all the elephants.  There are 42km, 21km, 10km and 5km runs on the same weekend.  All starting early in the morning.  The shorter distances are mainly routed around Laem Takhong Campsite and Visitor Centre area, where perhaps elephants are less frequent.  But the 42km in particular is going a long way down the road towards Haew Narok where elephant activity is very common, particularly early in the morning before the sun breaks through.  More than once I have been cycling down there 7am-8am and an elephant has been walking in the middle of the road.  They've written on their Facebook that they will have rangers standing at all the points where elephants often emerge from the forest, but that seems a bit like whack a mole to me.  For sure the guys at the front that are going for glory aren't going to want to hang around waiting for elephants to move.

race.thai.run/mazerunner2022

I did the 10km at this event.  No complaints, would go again, great scenery for running and a bit cooler than at sea level.  I don't think they sold out, my race had fewer than 400 people and the others had about the same or fewer.  I think not more than 1500 total.  The warm up music was loud around 6-7am.  No animal incidents.  They had a ranger stationed every 1km and they didn't serve any fruit on the course like bananas and watermelon, only energy gels and icecream.

This was the first running event inside the actual park.  All the others like Klong Madeau Trail, Khao Yai Marathon, North Face 100, Wang Bon Trail, Khun Dan Marathon etc, run outside the park boundaries.

The checkpoints were open 24 hours so people staying outside in hotels could get in.  They encouraged all the campers that were running to camp at the field near the visitor centre (where the start/finish was), rather than Laem Takhong.  This camping area is only usually used as an overflow area at New Year Holidays.  It got a bit busier after I took the photo.

 

Apart from the back road past the old golf course, no areas were closed to visitors.  That road is normally barriered anyway to cars but scooters can get around.  They open the barriers at night for the night safari jeeps to cruise around.

 

The weather was good but started raining afternoon and again in the evening and through the night.  Good for the waterfalls, this is Haew Narok.

 

This snake was right next to the visitor centre in the 'back garden' near the coffee shop.  It's one of the pit vipers right?  At first I thought it wasn't because it was much larger than the green pit vipers I've seen before.  But it has the same triangle-shaped head and mean stare.

 

On the way back to Rangsit from Nakhon Nayok they are selling rats on the side of the road, 250 baht a kg.  I didn't indulge but by the size of them I reckon that'd be about 40 baht per rat.