Great Wall of China

Half Marathon at the Great Wall of China

“How do you think we get out of this watch tower?”, we wondered as we walked around and look out the different openings that function as windows.  We are on approximately mile 3 of a half marathon (13.1 miles) on the Great Wall of China – a race that seemed like a fun and incredibly memorable way to celebrate turning 45 the previous month.  

Most of my previous half marathons had been on the hilly roads of Central Texas, nothing like the route along the Jinshaling Mountains – 90 miles northeast of Beijing – headed to Gubiekou to the southwest.  At the start of the race, it was a cool morning and the first 1-2 miles were on a very well maintained portion of the wall with solid and aligned bricks and steps with tall wall sides.  What one typically imagines when thinking of pictures.  Miles 2 and beyond were on less maintained portions of the wall, with uneven steps leading up to and coming down from the guard towers, dusty bumpy dirt paths.  Some parts of the race course had to depart the wall completely due to its deteriorating condition on that section.We walked back and forth in the guard tower and looked out all of the openings to see which seemed to have the other part of the trail and wall connected and realized none of the openings had steps leading back down and onto the rest of the course.  Finally some other runners appeared in the watch tower and said, “I think we are going to have to jump out of this window opening.”  We could see a continuation of the course, though it was about 6 feet down.  We shimmied to the edge of the opening and jumped down and landed on the uneven rocky steps below.  I remember thinking mid-air, “Dear God, don’t let me roll or jam my ankle as I land”.  

I had been researching adventure marathons in exotic destinations as a memorable way to commemorate milestone birthdays and the one on the Wall appeared seemed like a fun one for 45. I made the proclamation at my 44th birthday dinner, “ I think I know what I want to do to commemorate my 45th birthday.  Run a half marathon on the Great Wall!”  My friends all looked at me like I had lost my mind.   Any type of running or racing was a far stretch from where I thought I would be in my mid-forties.  In school, I was never really athletic and was almost always at the back of the pack with any of those dreaded physical fitness tests done in our elementary school PE classes.  

Between my 44th birthday declaration and my 45th birthday, I had started dating someone new, Chris.  When I told him about my plans for 45, he said, “I’ll go with you to China.”  My first thought was “Oh, wonderful! My mom will be so excited I am not going alone.”  At first, I thought he meant as race support/cheerleader, not realizing he meant to run it with me as well.  “Holy crap, you want to run this race with me, too?”  I did not expected anyone to join me in my special brand of adventure.  

I had always been fascinated by the Great Wall of China.  I had heard it was one of the only man-made structures that could be seen from space, which turned out to be an urban legend. I was fascinated, too, by how long it had taken to construct the wall.  From being started in 771 BC to being connected by Emperor Qin (for whom China is named) in 206 BC to mainly being rebuilt and updated during the Ming Dynasty, which ruled from 1369-1644.  As a history and geography buff, I could not believe I believe we were doing this!“We did not train properly for this race,” I realized to myself. Other than running up and down bleachers for 13.1 miles or climbing stairs in tall buildings, there was really no way to train for a race consisting of running up rocky steps to a watch tower and then back down more steps until it was time to run back up to another watch tower.  Up, through, down, back up, back down, back through.  “Completing this race is going to be much more difficult than I had expected,” I thought to myself after we completed our window jump.  

Even though I never really considered myself a runner, one of the things I love about races is the small community created with fellow runners, even if for a small portion of the race.  There were runners from all over the word participating in this race – Americans, Canadians, British, South African, New Zealanders – as well as runners from all over China.  The next escapade along the course was when we ran near the wall (rather than on the wall) due to the delipidated conditions on the wall.  This section of the race course consisted of mainly dirt and dust.  I kept slipping on the terrain, as did some of my fellow racers.  We were on a bit of a decline and it was difficult to maintain my footing.  I finally decided if we would being slipping and getting back up, I might as well stay down and give my legs and feet a bit of a rest.  I shimmied down those 30 yards on my backside, no longer trying to defy gravity and the shifting dirt and dust under my shoes.  A few of my fellow runners followed suit and we all made it into a bit of a slip and slide.  

Another element of the small community at the races I had done in Texas were the cheerleaders along the course offering support.  It always has been a great distraction and given me, and likely my fellow runners, that extra oomph needed to keep to going and pushing.  There had been cheerleaders at the start of the race, but were next to non in the more remote portions of the race.  However, on an empty part of the course and nowhere near a village, there was one lone woman in her 30s protected from the sun by an umbrella and standing with her smart phone very close to her mouth.  At first, I thought she was reporting back to the race officials on the number of racers.  Then, I realized she was speaking into her phone and, as runners passed, she would hold the phone out and it would translate her words into English audio.  “You look great!”  “Keep up the great work!”  I was so surprised and amazed that she would out there all by herself cheering on people from around the world.  

We kept pushing and pushing until we finally made it to the turnaround point at mile 6.5 after 4 or 5 hours.  The turnaround station was well equipped with medical equipment, food, and volunteers.  We found some Band-Aids for the blisters and some fuel in the way of bananas, nuts, and Gatorade – quite the surprise for China – in addition to the supplemental food we had in our packs.  We took a moment to assess the situation.  “I am wiped out and I don’t know if I can do that again,” Chris said.  “That” being the 2nd half of the course we had to run to get to the finish line.  I opened a translation app on my phone and typed “Are there any options for those of us who cannot finish the race?” and asked the app to translate the message into Chinese. Two volunteers read my message, then looked at each other, shrugged, and shook their head “No.”  I saw a road not too far from us and typed again into my phone “Can we get a cab or Uber out here that can take us back to the starting line?”.  The volunteers thought I was making a joke about how hard the race was and laughed at me.   No translation app needed for that answer. 

We realized we were going to have to make it back on foot and were likely at the back of the pack, the last of the runners.  There were four women from New Zealand who were there at the turnaround point with us and they said “You can run with us; we are moving slowly, too.” Ah, the community of runners showing up again at the right time in the race to give that extra encouragement to keep pushing forward.  

It did not take long for running pace to be slower than the our lovely New Zealanders speed-walking pace and we were on our own again.  Another community came along behind us, including an American race nurse and her husband as well as a race official who was in charge of taking down the flags, small orange traffic cones, and other race course markers.  He was breaking down the race course as we moved along.  We were the caboose.  I was struggling but kept putting one foot in front of the other.  Chris was running out of electrolytes and his legs kept buckling as we continued along the course.  Our little community of race nurse, her husband, and racer taking down the markers did not leave us.  

I remember thinking “Chris’s parents know this was my idea.  If their only son dies during this race, they know it was all my fault.”  Turns out Chris was thinking “Thank goodness Audra’s mom knows this race was her idea.  If her only child dies, she will know it was all her daughter’s fault.”  The race and our completion of it started to feel that precarious.  Especially when we ended up back at the guard tower where we jumped out the window and had to shimmy along the side of the tower – about a 4 foot ledge – on the edge of the mountain to make our way along the course.

We made it back to the first stop station for the race after the starting line (and now the last race stop station on the return) and found some pretzels for Chris to eat.  We both realized we were done.  We would not be able to make it back to the starting line on foot.  Thankfully, our community rallied for us again.  The man who had been taking down the race markers had a car at that race stop for picking up the last few race volunteers.  He could drive us back to the starting line.  Sweet relief!  We were finally eating some food and getting some liquids.  But, we knew we would not be able to make it back those last 3 miles.  We were done.  We had no more race left in us.  Almost 10 hours and nearly 10 miles later, we called it.  

We arrived back at the starting line via car feeling a little defeated but incredibly thankful the race was done.  We knew we had given it our all, but were not able to cross that finish line in the traditional sense – from the race course and on foot.  It did feel quite unusual to see the runners who had finished the race before we saw the finish line.  Usually, a racer crosses the finish line, then sees the clusters of fellow racers who were reliving parts of the race and feeling that sense of accomplishment.  In that group of racers, we saw a couple from South Africa who we had met the previous day and we made our way over to them.  “How was your race?” I asked.  It had been a good but hard race for them and the wife had a few Band-Aids on her knees due to a slip on the uneven paths. We told them we were disappointed we did not finish the course in the traditional sense and had missed out on being handed our finishers’ medals.  With that, our lovely friends led us over to the finish line and to the table with the race medals and told the officials that we should get a medal since we had run most of the race.  

Thankfully the race consisted of four distances  – 5K (3.1 miles), 10K (6.2 miles) plus the half and full marathon –  and they knew we had run at least a 10K to have earned a medal.  I felt such a rush of pride and relief that my words got caught in my throat as I said, “Are you sure?  Thank you so much!” Chris and I had supported each other and accomplished a feat like no other as well as having felt so much encouragement and shared experiences with our community of fellow runners, race volunteers and our unexpected lone cheerleader.  As I traced my fingers over the words “Conquer the Wall Marathon 2017” on my new hardware, I felt a mixture of wanting to laugh at myself for thinking the race was a good idea while knowing I would never forget my 45th birthday celebration.