The Great Wall Marathon

The Great Wall was breath-taking.


Words can't describe how beautiful and how immense the Wall was...when we started our run, the wall was covered in mist.




The marathon was held on a portion of the wall that wasn't normally visited by tourists, and so many of the people in the villages surrounding the wall came out to see the crazy people trying to run.



But as far as the eye could see, there were only trees and forests. It was beautiful.



I tried to take photos to show how awesome the stairs were on the wall, but I couldn't quite capture it all. We ran these stair twice; the first time after mile 3. The second time, after mile 21. The second time, there were people literally using their hands and feet, crawling up the stairs.

The fastest male was 3 hours, 40 minutes. The fastest woman was 4 hours, 3 minutes. We were...much further behind. But we made it within the 8 hour time limit, and weren't last! ^_^ In the middle, when I was having problems with stomach pain, we just decided to enjoy the run and take as many photos as possible.

This experience was definitely the best thing I have ever done. Maybe the next marathon I'll actually run more of the race course, but I almost feel that if I ran faster, I wouldn't have enjoyed the sights more.

While in beautiful Beijing, we also got to see Tienanmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, and a Shaolin Kung Fu show. I promise to post more later.