The Great Wall Marathon - by Tom

We had always wanted to go to China and picked the Great Wall Marathon as an excuse to go. It is usually held in late May which is a good time - it's spring and although still hot - not as hot as summer!  Take a look at   www.great-wall-marathon.com  

We arranged our trip and the race entry through a company in New York named China Travel Specialists  www.chinaexplorer.com  Our very helpful contact was Cindy Gao, a native of China, cindy@chinaexplorer.com   You must enter the race in conjunction with a tour package, which actually works very well. The main race organizers are Danish. Cindy also fixed us up with a two-week trip after the race.

The marathon had around 300 starters and the 1/2 marathon had about 200 people. The organizers hope to increase these numbers each year up to a couple thousand, so if you are a runner or a glutton for punishment, get in early before this turns into a huge race like London or Paris in size and loses its small town feel.

We had a group of 21 people that had the same tour package itinerary so we stayed together at one hotel and took the same bus everywhere. We all got to be good friends over six days. Our group included Olympic medal winner Rod Dixon from New Zealand, there as a special running ambassador, and John Wall.

Who's John Wall? John is 46, ran the Great Wall Marathon on his birthday, as his 100th marathon, he had number 100, and his last name is Wall. How's that for everything coming together? He said this one was second to Pike's Peak in difficulty and hotter than any other one he had done. Most people said they went 1.5 to 2 hours slower than their fastest times. John's normal time for a marathon is about 3:50. He did Pike's Peak in 6:15. John finished in 5:47; I finished in 5: 48. (I had predicted 5:40), so I was in good company. We saw each other several times along the route, along with others from our group.

The marathon had 304 people registered and 259 finished before the cut-off. I was finisher 88 out of 186 men who completed the marathon. The only time I saw the man who won was at the awards ceremony. Here I am starting the race all fresh and lively.

It was a great day, about 75F/24C at the start and maybe 90F/32C at the finish; the humidity was low. At every mile there was a water stop where they handed out nice little 10 ounce bottles of water. That way you could grab one and take it with you and toss it at the next stop. Over 26.2 miles I drank 20 of these bottles or a little over three gallons of water. (Yes, I peed, but not much!) I had seven packets of GU (a carbohydrate gel), and maybe 8 salt tablets. After the race, I had so much salt crusted on my face and in my hair that Rod told me I looked like a human salt lick.

The race consisted of about three miles uphill on a steep road, then two miles up and down the steps on the wall (there were NO flat spots where we could run), then about 15 miles of dusty dirt roads, then 2 miles on the wall going the other direction, then the end was three miles downhill on the same road we started on. Some stepped parts of the wall are very uniform and flat and some were so treacherous that they tied ropes along the way to hang on to. The rise of each step was also different, some were 18" steps, some were just sharp rocks, and some were only four inches high.

We passed the main area three times and Peggy was there to cheer me on and offer encouragement. The part of the race that was flat went through very small, poor villages that were packed with people and kids; most yelling the only English word they knew, "Hello!" We all said hello back. There were a lot of turns and corners but a marshal was at each and every one so it was easy to keep on track and the turns kept it interesting. We ran by dogs, cats, goats, and yes, camels.

It was a fun race. I tried to look at it as a mountain jog, a 15 mile run, and then another mountain jog. The second time up the wall was far tougher. I was afraid to stop because starting up again would be too hard. So I just put my head down and did step after step, knowing if I just kept going, it would eventually end. I didn't count them but they said there were 4,000 steps. Some parts were so steep you could use your hands to pull yourself up like a ladder.

At the top there was one poor guy lying in the gravel with an IV bottle being held up in the air by a race volunteer. Another time I saw one of the medical crew running with a stretcher over his shoulder. There is no way off the wall other than the steps so I'm not sure how those guys got down. Here I am getting congratulated by Rod Dixon who is NOT drinking his first beer of the day! After the race, Peggy paid for a short massage for me. All us runners were so gross that they used towels for massages so no skin to skin contact had to be made. It was a smart move on their part...

The only bad part was after the race, we had to take a bus four hours back to Beijing. They chose this site for its seclusion so they could close two miles of the wall to normal tourists for this race. It was a small town named Huangyaguan, which I never could find on a map. I'm used to doing hotel laundry in the sink, but even after all my training on the hot dusty roads of Costa Rica and the hilly trails of Santorini, this was the yuckiest bunch of clothes I have ever tried to wash. I just threw my socks in the trash.

That evening I felt OK, but the next day while out sightseeing, I just lost it at 2:00 p.m. and had to go back to the hotel for a two-hour nap. The race was on Saturday and I was back running a few miles on Wednesday, feeling fine.

It was a great challenge, and I'll be glad to share my training suggestions with anyone who wants to sign up. At the gala awards dinner, we toasted the winners. The marathon was won by a Chinese mail carrier from the town where the race is held. His time was 3:55. He got a great round of applause at the ceremony.

Training tips – at least these worked for me …
1. Run in the afternoon when it is hot.
2. Run on dirty dusty lumpy rocky trails.
3.Run five miles or so to the tallest hotel around. Go inside to the stairwell and go up and down for an hour. Then run home. Don't use the hand rails and every other flight go two stairs at a time.

China tips:
1. Learn to use chopsticks.
2. A smile goes a long way.
3. Learn a little Chinese - hello, thank you, beer, toilet
4. Learn a little Chinese history so you will appreciate what you see.
5. Taxis are cheap, rarely costing more than $2.00 for a 15-minute ride. Never leave your hotel without a card with the name of the hotel written on it in Chinese. You give these to the taxi driver because he won't speak English. These are great when you are done shopping and too tired to walk back or when you go for a run in a strange city and get totally lost - I did both.

Tom Peterson, Race # 20