Great Wall Marathon

Proud to say that I completed the Great Wall Marathon a couple of weeks ago. It was a fantastic setting - an isolated, well preserved and restored section of the wall about three hours outside of Beijing.

This was my sixth marathon to date and I used this event to help keep me in shape during our stay here in Xian. What runner could pass up the chance to run a marathon on the Great Wall? Despite the obviousness of this course's difficulty, I completely underestimated the severity of the challenge. It was not really a traditional marathon, more of an endurance test. It began with about a half mile of flat terrain before you started a couple of miles up a winding hill to to the wall. Once on the wall you go up and down the thousand year old steps for about a mile an a half across this rugged mountainous area.


After a careful and slow descent down a very steep, rugged path the course is flat for a while before you begin an series of ups and downs across meandering hills, through three small villages, along a worn goat trail - all the while being encouraged along by very friendly townspeople. The combination of kids and older folks was amazing and gave you quite a boost.


However at mile 22, just about the point at which you hit the dreaded runners wall, you return to the Great Wall for a repeat performance. Only this time you have to go up the steep staircase (1000 plus steps, easy) to get to the wall and then face its unique challenges. I was monkey crawling at this point. The payoff is the descent down the back side of the course, by that point a very welcome site.



I finished in 5 1/2 hours and was very, very happy to have completed. Surprisingly, I had perhaps my fastest recovery to date - and did quite a bit of really nice site seeing over the next several days. The only thing I couldn't face were stairs...