evidence

Some photos from the race. Here I am in Inspection Day. Looking down you can see Yin-Yang Square, which was the start-finish area. On the first trip on the Wall we descended these stairs to get back to Yin-Yang Square. The second trip on the Wall we climbed these stairs to get back up to the Wall.




At the finish, with the Wall in the background, giving something of a perspective of the climb that faced us at 21 miles:

real men

Bu dao Changcheng, fei hao Han. “If you don’t go to the Great Wall, you’re not a real man.” This is a popular saying in China, commonly ascribed to Chairman Mao (one source I’ve found said that the line originates in a poem he wrote during the Long March, giving the quote an interesting political-literary context). Interestingly, the character for “man” (Han) also refers to the Chinese themselves, and so it can also be translated as “If you don’t go to the Great Wall, you’re not a good Chinese,” but almost all English translations I’ve seen translate it as “man.” Well, whichever it is, I guess I am now a “real man” or “good Chinese.” The marathon is complete!

I went to the “inspection day” on Thursday, where the race organizers require you to walk the portion of the Great Wall, about 80 miles outside of Beijing, that is the site of the race. It would clearly have been possible to not do this, and to some extent I regretted using my legs in this way just two days before the race, but nonetheless I participated. This time we took a bus up the 3 mile climb to the wall entrance—on race day the climb is the beginning of the run. The elevation profile of the race unfortunately does not seem to be available anywhere online, though they had it on display at the race site. We walked the Great Wall section and then descended steeply back down to the start/finish area—the bulk of the 3800 steps (walked twice in the marathon) are in that part of the course.

I then stayed the rest of Thursday and Friday in a guest house literally at the foot of the Wall, which was actually completely boring, as I wanted to walk as little as possible. I read quite a bit and otherwise spent a lot of time stewing in my own incredibly anxious juices. One race organizer, staying in the hotel where I stayed, informed that that this is considered an “extreme marathon.” Really?

So, the race course, briefly described, basically consists of:

1. a 3 mile steady climb to get onto the Wall (since the Wall is built on top of mountains, you have to get up the mountain first to get onto the Wall, of course raising the question of why they felt they needed a Wall on top of the already-existing mountains)
2. 2 miles on the Wall (lots of up and down, but more down this way) and then back down off it
3. about 16 miles through various villages and countryside, including two other rather long ascent-descent sequences (one of them was probably about 1 1/2 miles up and another 1 1/2 miles down—a bit of a cruel joke to play in the middle of a race like this one)
4. back onto the Wall, this time backwards, so the steps that you descended to get off the Wall are now climbed to get back up onto it (this was probably about 1000+ steps, all going up)
5. 3 miles, this time nicely downhill, to get to the finish line

The time limit in the race is eight hours—they give you six hours to get onto the Great Wall for the second time. I was hoping to do the first 5 miles in under two hours—and I did it in less than 90 minutes, so that was good. Legs were shaky after first getting off the wall but then I got my rhythm and felt good.

The middle part of the course was through the countryside. I didn’t have a camera with me and really regretted not bringing one—the countryside was lovely as were all of the Chinese spectators. There were bunches of children along the course, some handing out little flowers that they had picked from along the road, and many wanting to give high fives. One village had organized a cheer squad, with a woman leading a group of children in rhythmically crying “jia you!” which literally means “step on the gas!” I had a conversation with a boy on a bicycle who wanted to see my watch and who declared it “piaoliang” (pretty), which it really is not.

The temperature was steadily rising through the day although I don’t think it really hit 90 degrees as this article claims:

Spaniard Beats Great Wall Marathon Record

There were lots of points where they were handing out bottled water, although a few of them were already out of water when I got there. I had a drop bag at the 16 mile point with a bottle of Pocari Sweat (my energy drink of choice here in China, for the name if nothing else) and a can of coffee (caffeine can never be a bad thing at times like this). But I basically felt good on this portion, intentionally holding back in my pacing.

I hit the Great Wall for the second time at exactly five hours, which I was pleased about. I was deliberately going slowly in the middle section, walking most of the uphills so as to save my legs for the last climb. And a climb it was. It was a long, steep ascent up many, many stone stairs and a goat path to get back onto the Wall itself. It was pretty much like watching a giant car wreck—many people were groaning, stopping, massaging their calves, and even sitting down. I was determined not to stop and definitely not to sit (seems like once you sit you are planted in that spot permanently, never to move again) so I just tried to very slowly but steadily climb. I was checking splits on my watch every 5 km (about 3 miles) and the 5 km with that section of the race took me about 1 hour and 20 minutes—as opposed to 36 minutes for my fastest 5km during the race and under 30 minutes for me to race 5 km! It was good to actually get on the Wall since that featured at least some descents which allowed for some variety of muscles being used.

This time the Wall, counting the climb up to it, took me an hour, which I was actually quite happy with (one hour for 1.5 miles…). I was completely joyful when I finally got off the Wall and started the nice descent back down the road I had started on about 6 hours earlier. I was able to run most of this fairly easily and was equally joyful when I crossed the finish line in about 6 hours, 38 minutes. The conventional wisdom seems to be that this course takes about 1 1/2 times longer than the standard marathon course, so I am happy with this time.

Today I am sunburned, somewhat sore, and very tired, but I’m off for lunch with an Allegheny student and her mother (from China) and then to the race banquet tonight. I’ll post a few more pictures in the next day or so.

tapering

It is now race minus 6 days. I am feeling a variety of emotions—nerves, excitement, anticipation of the inevitable post-race letdown. According to weather.com, the currently predicted high for race day is 92 degrees. I think it probably goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that that is a Very Bad Thing. I’m guessing that anything resembling shade will be a precious commodity along the race course, given the overall lack of trees here and the exposure on the Great Wall section in particular.

I have actually never run a marathon alone, so this will be a very different experience for me in a number of ways. All of my races except one have been with Jim, and the exception I ran with my friend Bubbles (a.k.a. Kathy). I’ve also never trained so much on my own, which has had its difficult moments but has also been really good for my psyche. I feel more like I have made “friends with myself” in ways that I never did before.

In my running, I’ve been tapering this week, which is good because work has been busy. First I made a short trip to a town in rural Hebei province to meet a female village head, which was interesting. China has elections at the village level that are genuinely competitive, but villages also have a Communist Party structure that provides a competing source of authority, and so although this woman was elected by a landslide by her fellow villagers, she often lacks the clout to actually govern, and was in tears describing her frustrations.

I also attended a conference of six women’s NGOs, which was a good reminder of how, anywhere you go in the world, some things are basically the same. This meeting was like any other academic conference I’ve attended where people are given 10 minutes to summarize their report/paper and are completely incapable of being anything resembling succinct. This leads to an escalating series of maneuvers by the panel moderator to get them to shut up—first finger waving (“2 minutes to go!”) then verbal intervention (“time’s up!”), more verbal intervention (“TIME’S UP!!!!”) and finally, application of duct tape. People at this conference also adopted the strategy of speaking as fast as they possibly could and of going through their Powerpoint slides at a brisk pace, and since it was all in Chinese, this was extra-challenging for me.

On a somewhat different note, there is an excellent article about Beijing, describing many of the things I also love about the city, in today’s Washington Post:

Beijing’s Moment

One correction from a Zhongguotong (“Old China Hand”—something people here sometimes call me). The photo at the top of the article is not Mao’s Mausoleum, but Tiananmen Gate (“the Gate of Heavenly Peace”), which is the entrance to the Forbidden City.

I don’t know if I will blog again between now and when I leave for the race (4:45 a.m. on Thursday morning, bleh). I will be spending the two nights prior to the race at the Wall. If you think of it at 7:30 p.m. Friday night eastern standard time, please send some good vibes my way, as the race starts here Saturday at 7:30 a.m. Many thanks to all who have been reading this and offering support!

patience

It is said (by someone) that the advantage of trail running is that you are not stuck so much in your own thoughts as you are when you are pounding the concrete, since you must remain mentally alert to stones, tree roots, etc. and that this gives your mind something to play with as you run. Well, trail running is not really an option here in Beijing, given (as I’ve noted previously) that the entire city is being paved over. However, there is really no excuse for mental boredom here, either—as I’ve also noted before, running here provides its own set of obstacles. I particularly pondered this today as I ran my 10 miles in the Purple Bamboo Park. It is supposed to hit 90 degrees here today, so I headed out early (-ish, at about 9:30 a.m.) and the park was already jam packed full of people, probably also trying to beat the heat. It truly is a test of one’s patience to run or even sometimes just to walk here. It is a constant game of dodging people to avoid causing upset or international incident. For instance, there is the “little emperor” syndrome—six adults (two sets of grandparents and one set of parents) walking their only child/grandchild, all six abreast on the sidewalk, the child pondering this phenomenon Buddha-like in his or her stroller, still blissfully unaware of the pressures to be heaped upon him or her as the only realization of the expectations of six grown-ups. Or there are the crowds of people gathered around pigeons or ducks, feeding possibly the only wild animals some of them are likely to see in their lives.

My parents in Purple Bamboo Park:

I’m sure this has been written already to death by Max Weber and other observers of the religion-culture-society link, but I’m not sure it is accidental that Buddhism, with its emphases on patience and compassion, arose in crowded Asia (yes, I’m aware that it is more crowded now than when the Buddha was around). I know that being here is all too often a test of my own patience, as well as my social-science derived convictions of the structural causes of much of the human condition. (By that I just mean, greatly oversimplifying, that if one is rich, or poor, or gets into Harvard, or is a poor peasant with “low quality,” is not just determined by one’s own good efforts but is also a product of the pre-determined conditions of one’s birth and existence.) For instance, when I was in Beidaihe, the seaside resort town, for the May Day holiday this past week I was often greeted by “Hellloooo,” said as if I was on exhibit in some zoo of laowais. After awhile, this drove me quite round the bend, but I also tried to remember that many people here never see a foreigner in the flesh. (Beidaihe is another story, entirely. The high leaders spend much of the summer there and so a very large chunk of beach is closed off for their private use, complete with lush-looking bathhouses.)

In any event, such contemplation of the need for patience also makes we rather aware of the manifold contradictions in the Chinese zeitgeist (is that some sort of oxymoron?) these days. On the one hand, China has historically been, and still thinks of itself as, the “Middle Kingdom,” the center of the civilized universe. On the other hand, everywhere you go people are being told to be more “civilized” (often for justifiable reasons). Today in the park I noticed various posters promoting “Pledging civilized behavior for Chinese citizens traveling domestically [or abroad],” such as this one:



Who wouldn’t be confused about their national identity with these messages?