Great Wall Half-Marathon

A team of HNCers and I ran the Great Wall Half-Marathon (2 ran the full marathon!) last week. It was such an amazing experience... probably Top 3. We couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather, and the wall was simply breathtaking (winding through the forest and very well maintained too). I think it was on a portion that doesn't usually have much tourism since it was a 3 hour busride outside Beijing city, in Tianjin county.

If you're interested in also running in GWM, here is my take:

It's very doable... I've only been running 4x a week for 3 months, and haven't done any stretches longer than ~6 miles. That's less than half of a half-marathon (13.1 miles), but since the first 1/4 of the race is on the wall, people don't actually "run" it... it's very steep and everyone ends up walking/crawling up and down. I'm not a very sure-footed gal, so I was very careful on the descending steps. There are also some portions of the wall that are missing a railing, so it's a bit dangerous and everyone crosses this part slowly. I think we took maybe 1 1/2 hours just on the wall! The last 9 miles are flat and through the nearby villages, so that's when your training really comes into use. My knees were killing me by the final few miles, but so long as you're blasting Britney in your iPod you can definitely carry yourself over the finish line no problem. ;) Also, there were a ton of water stations, and the later portions had bananas, cold water sponges, electrolyte drinks... so it was a very well-run operation. It was also so nice interacting with the locals, all those little kids lining the streets with their hands outstretched for a high-five. ^_^ It was definitely a morale booster, but you don't need much of that when all you see such beautiful scenery all around you. I'd say don't run TOO fast... enjoy yourself and take it all in.

A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL MY WONDERFUL FRIENDS, YOUR SUPPORT DURING TRAINING AND AT THE RACE MEANS THE WORLD TO ME. I love running now... on the lookout for my next conquest! ;)

Sorry if these photos are more grainy than usual, had to use my dinky old point-and-shoot camera (stuffed into my fanny pack, hahahaa).

Crossed the finish line, and here comes the cameraman!

My wonderful running partner, Laura. She's my roadrunner, I'm the coyote. ;)

Luke comes in 19th in the entire (WHOLE) marathon, and he barely trained... god! I think the most he ran was around Xuanwu Lake 2x, which is only 13 miles total. What a freak, haha.

Relaxing. :) Brewskies for everyone.

An epic Beijing duck dinner... can you imagine how hungry we all were?

Planned to go out that night and get plastered, but I had been up for almost 24 hours and my feet did not feel like it could stand in heels for much longer. Then we took a Sunday morning train back to Nanjing (which I will never do again b/c it took 9 hours).

The end!

Ah..... :) It feels good.