The Great Wall Marathon, May 19th, 2012

Today Mark ran The Great Wall Marathon. This was held in Huangyaguan, Tianjin Province. Which is about 2 hours out of Beijing, China. While every marathon (26.2 miles) is difficult this is considered one of the toughest running events in the world. With 5164 steps and several hills and today's hot temps in the mid 80's it did prove to be tough for all. Most years they have runners from about 50 countries in the world but today they said they had people from 100 different countries running. This marathon was founded in 1998, This of course was a big under taking I'm sure getting clearance from the Chinese government and Great Wall authorities. They do not close The Wall to any during the race so the runners did have some challenges of running around tourists not really staying out of the way at times.
They inform you that you should add about 50% of your usual time to your race. I know some of the runners were planning on being out there for about 8 hours. Fun?! They had different race lengths today varying from a 5K, 10K, 1/2 marathon and of course the full marathon. The full marathon runners had to "cross" The Wall twice during their run. They also ran through the village, through fields etc. but the hardest part had to be running The Wall. The steps themselves, uneven and steep. They really did "HIT THE WALL" as they entered The Wall again at MILE 20!!!!! If you look back at our pictures from yesterday you can see how steep the elevation is and to do this again at mile 20 is insane.
The race began at 7:30 and they would close the course of people entering The Wall at 6 hours. The biggest group of racers were the 1/2 marathoners but there were about 900 marathon runners ready to take the challenge. They did have frequent water stops along the run and they say they carry 15,000 bottles of water on foot to help hydrate those hot and thirsty runners.
We met so many interesting people on this trip. It is also so fun to hear every one's stories. So many people in the world being Expats and so many serious marathon runners traveling the world to the next interesting race.

Fresh and ready to run! See in the middle of the picture on the top...the little building on the top of the hill?  Mark had to run up to there on the wall...Twice!

First time over The Wall and readyto run out to the village.

Back from running through the village and getting ready to run over The Wall again.

Entering The Wall for the 2nd time

Finishing strong!

Completed the marathon under 5 hours!

Awesome marathon friends from Slovakia. They are fast!

The Great Wall of China

On Wednesday afternoon Mark and I took the high speed train from Shanghai to Beijing. This train travels at 180 miles per hour and is as smooth as a airplane. It was pretty amazing. The trip took us about 4 1/2 hours and we got to see a lot of the country side of China. It is so nice to get out of the city for a change. We saw a lot of people working in the fields as we sped past. We got to Beijing about 9 pm so we didn't really get to see much of the city. On Thursday morning we woke up early and got on a bus with a bunch of runners all heading to walk the portion of The Great Wall that they were going to run on Saturday. It was about a couple of hour bus ride to The Wall.  When we got there, we all sat in the Yin/Yang square to hear the details of how the races where scheduled etc. The race is in Huangyaguan, Tianjin Province, China. I will blog more about the race details tomorrow.

The Wall itself is pretty amazing. The portion that we walked on has quite a bit of elevated and a ton of stairs. The steps are not uniform steps that we are used to walking on. The height of each step varies and some of them are very steep grades. We walked about 3 km on The Wall and this took us over a couple of hours. It was a hot and sweaty job that day. The Wall was built to keep the enemies out...all the while I thought it was to keep the Chinese people in!

We are staying in a hotel that is supposed to be 4-stars but not the American stars that we are used to, but Chinese standards. We are staying with a lot of runners and took a tour today (Friday) with a lot of them. We went to see the Qing Dynasty emporor's tombs and a Market. Tonight is the pasta dinner at the hotel and then early to bed. We have a early start tomorrow at 4:00 a.m. and the bus leaves at 5:20 a.m. for the big race.



Mark at the Yin and Yang square where they will start and finish The Great Wall race.



Hong Kong

Last week Mark and I traveled to Guangzhou on Wednesday night. We spent a little extra time in the airport as our flight ended up being delayed for 4 hours due to rain. We got to our hotel at 0100. Mark went to the Guangzhou plant for the day and I hung out at the hotel. After dinner we walked to a park area and watched a fountain and light show. Reminded us of the Bellagio in Las Vegas, but would have to say this one was much longer and better. The thing I like about this little city of 8 million and the area we were, was that is was very quiet. We sometimes were the only ones on the sidewalk, rare traffic, and no honking of car horns. It was a little bit of Heaven. On Friday Mark went back to the plant and in the afternoon we took a train into Hong Kong. The train ride was about 2 hours, the ride was very smooth and we got to view some of the China country side. It rained pretty much all the way to Hong Kong.

When we got to Hong Kong it continued to rain pretty heavy. We took a taxi from the train station to our hotel on Hong Kong Island. Saturday we had booked a all day tour of the city. It rained in the morning but for the tour the rain held off. We took a cable car up to the Peak and got a good view of the city. We had a tour of a jewelry store, boat harbor and fishing village, open air market. Then in the evening we took a ferry boat across the harbor and watched a laser light show and then to a restaurant to eat. It was a long day but nice to see the sites.

We both decided we liked Hong Kong better then Shanghai. Hong Kong is a much smaller city and seemed very western to us. English is the primary language and we saw way more expats there. The area is also very hilly and lots of green space.

We left to go home on Sunday early afternoon. We took a taxi to the train station to go back to Guangzhou for our 2 hour ride. From the train station in Guangzhou we took a subway to the airport. Then flew back to Shanghai. We again were delayed a few hours due to rain and ended back in our apartment at 0100. Mark had Monday and Tuesday off this week due to the Chinese Labor Day Holiday.

"The Peak" in Hong Kong. Great view. I think the photo was altered as it didn't seem that clear while we were there.

Largest floating restaurant in the harbor.

Fishing village in the harbor area.

Laser light show,