Saturday 18 May

3 hours of sleep is just not enough for Cindy….

Today was race day. We were up, dressed and on a bus by 3.40am this morning as the drive back out to the wall takes at least 2.5hours.

I should have mentioned in the last post that with all the extra smog and cigarette smoke in the air I have been suffering really bad allergies (Kath has been fine though). The whole bus ride I felt pretty awful. The first half an hour I struggled with allergies then I had a small nap and on waking up I then started feel really nauseous, the bus ride was really awful for me. I was a bit worried if I would even be well enough to run.

We finally arrived at the race start area and once I was off the bus and moving I started feeling a lot better. It was a very overcast day and also a bit cool, so we were glad to have our jumpers.

We had our entry tickets taken and then made our way to our groups spot. We had to use the toilets and unfortunately the western one was completely backed up, it was really gross. So we went back out to use the portaloos. And lo and behold they were all squat toilets. So I had my first crack at a squat toilet and ended up being successful- no pee on my shoes or pants, WINNING!!!

There were some performances done by the local groups, some dancing and instrument playing. There was a huge group of Kiwis here and they did a Hukka performance.

Finally it was time for Wave 1 of the marathon and half marathon to get started. I was allocated to Wave 1 but since Kath and I were running together, we started in her wave, which was Wave 2.

Wave 1 started with the release of balloons and then we made our way down the the start area. We were near the stage so could watch the lady’s dancing, the band then started playing Jingle Bells tune… we are not sure why. Then the race was off. We planned to run to the base of the first hill then speed walk up there and on to the wall with intermittent running and walking. We reached the base of the mountain at about 1.2km, so we backed off and did speed walking, no point wasting energy too early.

It was a tough 5km up the hill but we saw some interesting things along the way like some dogs in a cage which was actually really sad. Loads of locals were out to cheer us on and they were all happy to try out their English by saying “hello, hi, good morning and go go go”. It was really nice.

We finally reached the start of the wall stairs, where there were some “cheerleaders” putting on a performance. We had planned to walk most the wall and just take it easy. There was some congestion on the wall and some people were really inconsiderate and kept trying to push past. There were a few flat spots on the wall we were able to run which was cool. The stairs seemed easier than the inspection day.

We finally came off the wall and started our run down to the local village. We were running on the main road which didn’t have us separated from the traffic. At one point we had to cross the road, I still can’t work out why we did when we did as there were no signs. The head wind down that stretch was really strong.

We then started to make our way into the village which was really muddy and huge puddles were everywhere. It was not what I was expecting, it was also hillier than I anticipated. There were loads of locals all through the village all out to cheer us on and high 5. I let Kath high 5 people cause I didn’t want the germs (awful I know). There was one wall we ran past which a puppy had his head out of a brick in the wall, it was so sad cause we didn’t know if he was stuck.

We came up another hill and around a corner and some chickens tried to kill me.. okay maybe not, but they scared me to death.

We then made our way back to the race precinct and did a bit of walking as we were starting to get tired. We started a walk/run combo back down the main road then we eventually came to the last km. We ran through there and in to the finish area where some of our tour group were cheering us on. We came in at 3hrs 18mins which we were happy with. 2 of our kms on the wall were over 20mins!

We then hung around at the race precinct and had some lunch. It was pretty cold as we were very sweaty. We went for our free massages which were amazing and warmed us up. I went from being able to barely walk to moving around fairly nimbly. The guy didn’t understand my grimacing face when he was doing my legs. After the leg massage we got shoulder massages too. It was awesome!

We went back to the finish line and cheered on some more of our group.

Once our trip friends from Gladstone came over we made our way to the bus to come back to Beijing.

The bus took just under 3 hours and we are now happily cleaned and in bed.

Tomorrow is our last day with our current tour group before we move on to Xi’an.