A Marathon on the Great Wall

'You can't be called a hero if you've never walked the Great Wall'

The way my logic goes...

Walking the Great Wall = One becomes a Hero

Running a (Half) MARATHON on the Great Wall = SuperHERO! / Insane

At 6 we woke up to catch our 6:30 bus for the race. We ate bread and peanut butter in the bus and slept. We arrived at 10:30, where the cheerful if somewhat confused race organizer declared 'Ok... so we are a little behind schedule as the run is supposed to start at 11 and now it is 10:35... so you will not have time to warm up.... but that is OK because it is a thirteen minute run to the starting point so everybody get there ok now that is my English and I will do now in Japanese.'

Yes, half the race participants were Japanese, and this was definitely a 'grassroots' run, to put it politely. The official official marathon costs about $1500USD to participate in and has some of the most hardcore people in the world signing up for it and will be held mid-May. This one cost 150USD and they gave us free Crocs.

So I start warming up as much as possible, running along a Swedish guy who goes to PolyU in HK named Linus who my friend invited to join us for Beijing. He casually mentions that he has done four marathons with a best time of 2:40. I am saying 'Oh wow that's amazing!' and thinking 'What have I gotten myself into...'

Before the race starts an employee from the Wall gives us a pep talk in enthusiastic Mandarin that the organizer translates. They emphasize that we should not be trying for a great time, but for fun and enjoyment.

Thought process: 'Crap crap crap....'

The Wall employee yells the Chinese equivalent of 'Ready set go!' and we all look at eachother for a moment, confused, until Linus takes off like a rocket and we all follow him up the first of many, many flights of steep, rubbly stairs meant to deter the Mongols.

Race Start: 11:14am
Legs on fire by: 11:16am

The first half of the race was on the Wall, and the first twenty minutes was almost completely composed of steep crumbling steps. The five students I came to the race with sprint ahead, and I set myself a bearable pace in the middle of the pack. Moniek and Kristen have been training all semester with these weekly races that involve an hour of 'rock jumping' and Oliver and Kristoffer are 22 year old, tall, fit guys.

It is about 30 degrees out, and I forgot to wear sunscreen. Tourists are gaping at us the whole way. Locals laugh, and Westerners call out encouragements, express admiration, and shake their heads at our complete and utter lunacy.

After about half an hour I have totally given up running the stairs. I could run some, but then there would just be more to reward me, and I would go even slower. On some parts, I am using my hands to help myself stay balanced because the stairs are so steep and deteriorated. On the downhill parts my legs are shaking from exhaustion and I am trying to ensure that I don't slip and break my ankle (I slipped and fell on my butt twice anyway!)

Since this is a grassroots run, there are, of course, no signs. The only way that I know that I have gone the right way is because every 15 minutes or so there are two volunteers in marathon t-shirts giving out water bottles.

I got lost three times. The first time, I run up to a watchtower with a ledge that is about up to my ribcage. I look around and sigh at the sheer absurdity of this ancient obstacle course and hoist myself up onto the ledge. At this point, I am doing my utmost to stay ahead of the old Japanese runners behind me, who are constantly nipping at my ankles. I run through the blessedly dark and cool tower and come to a doorway. As I am about to leap out the exit I realize at the last second that there are no stairs here - just a six foot drop onto hillside (a drop that Kristoffer later confessed that he did... helps when you are 6'2!) I stop and gape at the jump, and I know that I do not have the strength or coordination at this point to make without breaking an ankle. The Japanese runners stop short behind me and peer over my shoulder to join in my gaping.

A tourist from below points to a path about twenty meters right of the tower that seems to have originated from our side. We backtrack, and I probably lost about five minutes to the whole excercise.

This is also when the hardcore Japanese Grandma overtook me. This woman must be at least 80, and she is bionic and hilairious and I hope to be her one day. The Japanese really are some of the most genetically gifted people in the world if they can produce people like this. Apparently she is the first to sign up every year (she pays for the race a year in advance every time) and she wears tight spandex and harcore running gear and weighs no more than 95 pounds.

Anyway, so here she passes me. I think 'Oh, tricky Grandma, using my confusion to overtake me. Just you wait, soon your ancient legs will give out and you will eat my dust.'

Of course this never happens. She passes me with a triumphant yelp and hops and skips and leaps over stairs until I can only see her as a micro grandma in the distance, leaping over obstacles and high fiving people on the way to the top ten.

The second time I got lost was much similar. The third time was very, very frustrating. I crossed this bridge and then was at a three way crossroads. At this point, I am precisely between the top 50% of runners and the bottom, and there is a lot of distance between the folks ahead of me. I have no idea which way to take. I go right, and after about two minutes realize that was the wrong way, so I backtrack. No problem, at least it was more or less flat. I look left and figure that the narrow stairs hugging the watchtower must lead to a passage that leads to the wall. I take these stairs. They wind down, and down, and down, towards a ravine. At some points they are hugging a wall with open space to the left of me. I am thinking 'This is bloody dangerous! I hope Japanese Grandma didn't fall into the ravine!' At some points, it is so narrow that my hips almost got stuck when I walked straight down them.

I get to the bottom, frustrated almost to the point of tears when I realize there is no passage. Angrily, I take a picture, so that it looks like I meant to go down those bloody stairs. I resignedly crawl back up them, legs on fire. I get halfway up and see some tourists above disappearing into some bush, following a path. Once I get to the top of the path, five minutes later, I follow suit, and find myself at the bottom of the biggest, steepest, crumbliest set of stairs yet.

I wanted to throw the organizers down the ravine.

I finally finish that set, and three more, and get off the Wall to the flat part of the race. An hour and 45 minutes have passed, and I have only covered 10 kilometers.

As I get on the roadrace segment, I see Linus walking and talking to one of the wives of the runners.

I think to myself that he has either:

A) Injured himelf and is walking the race (plausible as cut throat Japanese Grandma seems capable of catching him and tossing him down the ravine as she pursued glory)

B) He has finished the race in the time it took me to do half of it.

Of course it is the latter. I say 'Hey Linus, how does it look ahead?'

He turns, and gives me a look that could be misinterpreted as suprise that people are still running the race he so breezily finished (of course he didn't say or think this, but it was a hilairious scenario I pondered for the next couple of minutes of running).

'Oh it's fine! Keep going!'

And it was. This was what I had trained for weeks on - paved road. I made quite good time on this segment and passed three people.

Until the end. At about the.... 19 kilometer mark my legs were completely exhausted. I had been running for two hours and forty five minutes. I would run for a minute and have to walk for 30 seconds. I would try to push ahead, but they wouldn't go any faster. I finally approached the last hill, where a cab temptingly waited (presumably not for exhausted runners, but the humor of the situation was captured by my trusty camera).

I walked about a quarter of the hill and then slowly, very slowly, jogged up the last stretch. I saw the finish and told my legs to speed up. Yes, I would have a glorious finish. I look at the trees on the side of the road, and notice even though my brain is telling them to run faster and I feel pretty sure that they are working much harder... the trees are not going by any faster. I look to the finish. Some eager volunteers see me, stand up from where they were sitting on the road cross-legged, and run to the finish line with the red finish line banner that they hold up for every runner to be embraced by as they cross the line. My friends and the runners who have finished whoop and cheer. They chant 'Jess Jess Jess!' and people clap and my exhausted brain calculates that I am running crookedly and I correct myself and cross the line at 2 hours and 52 minutes.

That was, by far, the hardest race I have ever done - but the most rewarding and beautiful and crazy. I am so glad I did it - paperwork and getting lost and legs on fire aside - I now have completed it, and become a Superhero.

Five days later, my legs are still sore.

Exeunt.

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