May 18, 2013-
3:00 am- TIME TO GET UP!!!!! Wakey, wakey! Today is the Great Wall Run!!! Eat a small bowl of cereal & a banana. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! I wanna go back to bed!
3:30 am- Time to walk over to Angela's house. Angela has organized a bus for a group of us expats running today. Who's going? Well, let's see…there's Quay, Angela, Crystal, Dave, Sam, Agnes AND Clair!!!
3:50 am- Load 'em up! Time to climb onboard the mini-bus and enjoy the l-o-o-o-o-n-g ride to the Wall.
4:00 am- Pick up the rest of the crew at the Clock Tower. Huh. We're waiting for one particular person. She's a friend of a friend, she's riding on a scooter and she's never been to this part of Tianjin. Oh boy! This doesn't sound good.
4:20 am- Darn…this friend still doesn't know where she's at. We have to leave now in order to make it to the run in time. So sorry but we've got to leave….Sadly this friend wasn't even able to tell us where she was so it was difficult to help.
6:20 am- We arrived at the GW….WOW! There are so.many.foreigners here! I don't think I've seen so many foreigners in one place in China – more westerners than Chinese!
The welcoming band at the entrance is playing a CHRISTMAS MELODY!!!!! (Jingle Bells). Ummmm….That's just plain old hilarious!
First things first- I need to find a bathroom. Oh boy.. The line for the porta-potties (aka portable toilets) is half a mile long. I need to go now! Hey- we just heard that there are squatty potties off in a corner. No waiting! Okay, so I'm not a fan of squatty potties but I'm also not going to pass up on opportunity to go now! LOL! {eep…those squatty potties are just holes in the ground. Ummm…*very rustic*}
(oops, so I've lost track of time…)
Watching the Before the Race Celebrations:
I signed up for the 7.5km Fun Run. Umm…yeah right. Somehow I think that's false advertising! Fun, indeed!!!?! The run is 7.5km….Am I ready? Nope. Not at all! Let's do it anyway.
The first three waves have started- the serious runners, the marathon and half-marathon runners are off and running. Crystal and Dave are running the half-marathon. Now it's the Fun Runners turn!
10-9-8-7–6-5-4-3-2-1!!!! Off we go!
So, we're basically walking….it seems like there are several hundred people joining us today.
The run starts at the parking lot of the wall…we're walking down the main road and then turn left and head up to the Great Wall entrance. It's a couple miles of gentle but still leg-burning uphill running/walking.
There were lots of Chinese people standing by the side of the road- I assume they were cheering on the runners but maybe they were calling us "crazy"! I don't know. Lots of kids liked giving the runners high fives as we were passing by.
I'll admit it- I set out thinking I'd walk the entire walk. I did end up jogging for a bit but I didn't jog nearly enough. I wish I'd tried harder to stick with jogging instead of walking. It's also hard to take photos with the iPhone while jogging! I've brought a small backpack to carry an tiny emergency medical kit, a few packets of Propel and my iPhone. Lots of people are jogging to music but I've opted to not listen to music while jogging- it's more fun to talk to the people you meet along the route.
It was really weird but they didn't close off the road to traffic OR to tourists visiting the Great Wall. It was a huge pain constantly having to move to the side because of cars passing by. Is there normally this much traffic or did these people come here to ogle the weirdos foreigners. There were a few people (Chinese) up on the Wall that obviously weren't participating in the run. At one point they were slowing down the runners by taking photos (blocking the walk way). Ummm….I don't mean to be rude but couldn't you visit the Wall on a different weekend? Or just wait a few hours for the majority of the runners to have passed?
We're up on the Wall- wow! Those last steps to get up to the Wall are *KILLER*. My legs are burning!!!!
We've just got a little bit more- just the crazy up and down of the wall (you know, the uneven, steep steps). No problem! I'm running with Sam, Frances and Quay. I see Angela and Clair behind us- they're doing great!!!
So glad they've got several stations giving out water bottles. I'm very thirsty.
Going downhill on the steps is EASY! Too bad going UPhill isn't as easy! LOL!
A few sprinkles of rain falling from the sky. Great timing but I hope it doesn't rain any harder….we're crossing over some fairly slick rocks and rain would make them slicker.
It's all downhill from here! Yaaay! We're nearly there! And just think- the full marathoners had to run the Great Wall portion- TWICE! Eep! Once is quite enough for me, thank you very much. Actually, we met a marathoner who was quite content WALKING the entire thing. This wasn't even the first marathon she'd done – she says she selects marathons that are located in interesting and unique places (like Maui and Disney). Hmmm….sounds kind of like a neat idea!
Woo Hoo! We're in the home stretch now!
Huh. I kind of feel like I could have kept jogging. Are we done already? That seemed to be over with too fast! It took us about 1 hour and 50 minutes to finish it.
Our steep entry fee (I think it was 1600 RMB) included the run, a t-shirt, a medal, Subway sandwiches, bananas and water for lunch.
Did I mention that as a group we were raising money for the Great Strides program to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation via Crowdrise. As a group we raised $3,005!!!! Thank you to everyone who donated to this excellent cause!!! (P.S. I don't think it's too late to donate).
Soooooo….who's up for the half marathon next year??????