Run till you drop
The Beijing Marathon was supposed to start at Tiananmen Square and finish at finish at the National Stadium near the new Olympic park. But planning being what it is here, they overlooked that the national congress was meeting this week and had to re-arrange the route to both start and end at the National Stadium. Well, end there all except for the half marathon which I was entered in.
My first challenge was to find the starting line. The sign at the entrance pointed left, so I went left. And left, and left, and left. I found the 5K starting line with loads of runners waiting. I went through and around them only to find the 10K starting line a few hundred yards ahead. I was starting to get desperate. I tried to go around the 10K starting line only to be stopped by a guard. Two japanese men also wanted past. The guard held is ground. We tried to explain we needed to be at the other starting line, to let us past. Out race jerseys and numbers indicated either full or half marathon. The guard did not understand nor did he wish to understand. A few more of us stranded marathoners gathered and with a push forced our way past the now two guards and to the marathon starting line. The race had just started so we joined, it was 8:15am.
Back in June when I signed up for the race, my plan was to train and run the full marathon. This worked about as well as the time I bought jeans two waist sizes smaller than I needed. In this case, a calf injury caused me not to run for all of september and by the time I could run I couldn't get me mileage up to seriously consider the full marathon. But I figured the half would be no problem.
At first the race was crowded and the pace was no faster than a 10 minute mile. You notice calves and shoes in such conditions. Sometimes a calf leads it way up to a pretty girl. Sometimes not. I noticed a runner wearing soccer shoes. Rubber cleats and all. 15 minutes into the race, the elite runners passed going the opposite direction. They were just flying. The mere mortals I was running with cheered them on.
jiayou jiayou (加油, 加油)!
Came the chants, which translates to "go go". Literal translation is something like "put the oil in it". "Jiayou, jiayou" was a common refrain throughout the day. Spectators, and there were many, cheered it. Sometimes it would ripple through the the throng of runners giving us energy.
Aidan and Lydia waiting for me to pass. Yihang is holding Lydia.
People ran in groups, representing a company or a school or a club. Some carried flags and some groups chanted encouragements. Many men runners stopped at the side of the road and peeded into bushes and trees, not really trying to hide themselves. It was a kind of Bay to Breakers with Chinese characteristics.
As luck would have it, the race route ran close by Yihang's home, so Yang, Lydia, Aidan, and her came out to meet me. This was at around the 13K mark. I stopped, for this picture, and tried to get Aidan to run with me. Aidan was reluctant because the security guard told him not to. Lydia, meanwhile, had waited long enough for me to run by and was being fussy.
At the 16K mark I started to wonder if I would finish. I was thinking it was 23K for the half marathon, and I'm not sure I had 7K left in me. My right foot was hurting bad, I either need new shoes or a new foot. A muscle in my upper left leg was very tight causing my stride to shorten considerately. My feet were barely getting off the ground as I made my way along Haidan park, trying to keep up with can best be described as SLOW runners. In fact, the slow runners were passing me, left and right. It used to be that I would be flying by people at this point no more. Just finish, I told myself.
After what seemed like forever, I passed the 19K sign. Crap, I thought, 4K more is going to be really hard. Then the course forked, full marathoners to the left, half marathoners to the right. Two nights prior, over a beer with friends, I told them I might just "go for it" and do the full. Uh, times had changed.
Then something wondrous happened. The race was over. 13.2 miles isn't 23K, it's 21K. I passed to finish line in two hours, 15 minutes (we are rounding down to 2 hours, thank you).