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.