2011 Shanghai Half Marathon

   

   Yesterday started out with my alarm clock going off at 5:30am. I had done all my prep the night before so all I needed to do was eat, put on my running clothes and braid my hair. I was aiming to be out of my apartment by 6am to guarantee that I would be near the start line about 6:45am. The night before I had to look up the times for the first train b/c I had never taken it that early and needed to confirm that it would be running, otherwise I would have to catch a taxi. I found the metro website and it seemed that I would be catching one of the first trains. The timetable didn't say how often the trains ran so I was a little nervous that I would miss the first train then have to wait a long time for the next. Well, once I got myself out of the apartment by 6:10am (of course, running a little late) I only had to wait about 1 min for the train to come. At my first transfer to the next metro line (it was going to take me 3 trains altogether) I ended up seeing some other runners. I could tell they were running the in the race b/c they were also carrying the same hideously yellow backpack as me, ones that the marathon committee was giving out to all the runners for the clothing check. Seeing these other runners was a sign of relief for me b/c it meant that I was on time and heading in the right direction!! Finally, I got to the East Nanjing Road metro stop and went above ground to see hundreds of people carry the same yellow bag. I could tell I was almost there!

   It's probably worth mentioning that I did go to bed early the night before (thank you texts from the marathon committee for the suggestion!!) but was too nervous to fall asleep for hours so I was pretty tired on my way to the race. Also, I think it's funny that the texts I had been receiving the days leading up to the race had themes like "eat well", "stay healthy" and "get lots of rest" but yet they were still sending me texts (yes multiples) as late as 11:33pm on Saturday night (after I had been in bed for a couple of hours).I'm pretty sure I was actually dozing off when the texts came through and they totally woke me up!

I didn't think to take a better picture of the yellow bag but you can see a few ahead of me in this photo.

It was cold out, check out all my layers.

    The start of the race was at The Bund. You can see the Oriental Pearl Town in the background of the shot above. The course would take me south along the river, over a bridge and into the World Expo grounds.

Check out all the people!

Left, the starting line. Right, the Coaches that they had set up that would

take peoples clothing to the finish line.

Me in the sea of Asian people. I was told today that the paper reported,

20% foreigners and 80% Chinese participants.

Ready, set, go...
After the start gun went of it took me 11 minutes to actually get up to the start line!

   There were 26,000 people running this event. It was so crowded along the course. The first 4 miles were so crowded that it was a struggle to get out and around slower runners. Also, groups were running sometimes 6 people across which made a human barrier, you had to get aggressive to get around (wait, this is exactly like walking around anywhere in China...I should have expected this). It was so bad at some points that I resorted to tapping peoples elbows so they knew I wanted to get around them. The crowd stayed thick until about mile 7 when it started to thin a bit, or at least became bearable. I definitely got frustrated at certain points when it just seemed that people were aiming to get in my way...luckily I had Donald's voice pop in my head reminding me that I was supposed to be having fun...after all, having fun was my main goal.

Heading to the climb up to the Nanpu Bridge

   The climb up the bridge was about 2 miles into the race and much steeper then I expected. Many people stopped and walked this part which made it difficult to get around them.

Finally to the top of the bridge.

  At first I found  it nice that the mileage wasn't posted everywhere like they do for races in the States but what was really difficult was that when it was posted it was all in Kilometers. I had forgotten to do the conversion and was a little frustrated that I wouldn't know when the I reached the half-way point but then Donald's voice was in my head again reminding me to just have fun. I was almost certain that my total distance in Kilometers would be around 21 or 22 km... so when I saw the banner for 19km I knew I was getting close...but how close I wasn't sure. Then I hit 20km...a few minutes later I saw the second "hill" of the course (it was another bridge but much smaller then the first). When I reached the top there was a group of students waving banners in Chinese with only one word in English "HOLD 1km". I took that as the truth and sped up a bit but still not having a good idea of what the distance of 1km really is. The next thing I knew I was rounding a bend and could see the finish line in front of me only a few hundred yards away. Yay!! The finish line...I sprinted in and was a little disappointed when I saw the clock. It said 2hrs 12mins and some odd seconds, this was the official time of the race at the start gun but remember I didn't cross the start line until about 11 mins after...so I knew that I was close to my secret goal (finishing under 2 hrs) but thought that I had missed it by about a minute or so until I looked at my stopwatch...1hr 59mins and 17seconds. I knew I had done it!

Afterthought picture of the finish line.

After finishing I was immediately ushered underground into huge lines of
people waiting for food and water. Each runner received a bag of food
containing a small bottle of water (I could have drank about 4 of them), 2 fun size
Snickers and a small package of sweet biscuits. Not the normal spread that I
am used to. I was SO hungry and thirsty

   This first line was for food as I mentioned before but then I was directed into several more long lines. One to pick up my official time (1hr, 59mins and 30secs), medal and certificate then another to hand in my timing chip and receive back my 100rmb deposit...yes, they really had dozens of people with enough 100rmb bills to give back deposits to 26,000 people...it was quite the site! Finally after giving my timing chip back we were allowed back outside into fresh air but nowhere near the finish line. It was very discouraging to go cheer people on since I was so far away so I found the Coach with my clothing and caught the Metro back home. I got back to my apartment by 10:45am.

   I was amazed with the number of old Chinese men and women that ran the race. They all seemed to be doing a good job and were passing many of the younger Chinese people. It was also amazing the number of people running in jeans, polo shirts, keds (fake keds probably), jean shorts and every other article of normal street wear. I can't imagine that it was comfortable but since there was so much of it, people did not look out of place. Overall, I had a lot of fun and am glad that I have this experience under my belt. I'm not sure when I'll have the opportunity again to run a race in another country...

   Luckily, I had made previous plans to meet my friend Joan for brunch otherwise I just would have stayed home and slept. But instead I showed, got dressed up (yup, put heels on) and went out for a fancy brunch of oysters, lamb and lobster (and lots of other goodies). We spent about 2 1/2hrs eating and drinking. It was the perfect follow-up to the run.