Let me preface this by saying that I have the most amazing friends and family in the entire world and I would not have been able to cross the finish line without your support.
This weekend I went to Beijing to run my marathon on the Great Wall of China. The plan was to leave Shanghai on Friday and come back on Saturday. We ended up needing to stay another night in Beijing but I am back in Shanghai now. I have just completed my Freshmen year of college and I will be home on Saturday.
I can honestly say running this race was the hardest thing I have ever done. If you haven't looked it up, in order to finish the race, I had to climb the wall twice, and it was over 5000 stairs. The race starts out on a flat path for about 2 minutes. Had I known what I was getting myself into, I would have cherished those two minutes for the rest of my life, because everything after that was unbelievable difficult.
We began to ascend our first mountain. We just kept climbing up this hill and I kept thinking to myself, we must go downhill at some point... (What goes up must come down) but it just never happened. For about two miles we just kept running up this hill and then the Wall came. Running up the wall the first time was not as bad as I thought. I kept moving and even though it was slow it didn't feel that terrible. The steps were uneven and steep so I had to be really careful not to slip. The wall was pretty congested with runners, but the view was amazing. I think the wall ended up only being like 2 miles of the race, but it felt like it went on forever, by the time I got off the wall it had been an hour and I had only completed an 8K (5 miles). After the first part the hills just kept on coming. It took me 3 hours to complete a half marathon. It was so hot, so hilly, and I at that point I was so worried I was not going to finish. By mile twelve we had yet to go down a single hill, and then I caught a break. We began to descend just a little. The roads that we were on were completely unpaved and rocky. I tried my best to resist going to fast down the hill so I wouldn't fall, but somewhere between mile 12 and 14 I tripped over a rock and completely face planted into the dirt. I think it knocked the wind out me a bit and I knew that my right leg was definitely bleeding. For a second I just wanted to lay there and have someone pick me up so I could go home, but I looked behind me and there was this women who did not look like she was going to help me, so I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and vowed I'd beat that girl to the finish.
While we were running around the village, there were hoards of Chinese people cheering us on and taking videos and pictures of us. I've really grown to be annoyed by that when I'm in Shanghai, but I put on my best smile as I ran by. They were all shouting "美女加油”which means "you can do it pretty girl". There were tons of little kids out watching us too. They would try to highfive us or run along side of us while trying to practice their english. By the 19th mile I stopped responding to them, I could speak if I wanted to.
As we made our way back to the wall for our second time, I really didn't think it was going to be that bad. I just kept telling myself that it would be over soon and I would be crossing the finish line. By the time I made it to my 21st mile 5 hours had already passed. Annie and I were going to miss our train back to Shanghai and it was up in the air where we were going to be able sleep that night. When I started to climb back up the wall, I really thought someone was going to have to air lift me off of it. It was a struggle to make it up each step. I was on my hands and knees crawling my way up. I knew I was out of energy, I tried to drink some Gatorade and water but my sugar was so low. Finally someone offered me one of their gels. (They gave gels out twice during the race, but they were two miles too late, if you ask me). I stopped a lot on the wall, trying to gain some strength to finish. At one point there was an older man in front of me and his leg seized up he almost fell back on me, and let me tell you we would not have survived that fall. Some guy climbing next to him grabbed the mans arm and helped him keep his balance. He looked back at me and said "that fall would have set you back" If I had any energy left at all I would have laughed but I thanked him and kept climbing.
The wall felt like it was never going to end. I remember climbing up it thinking " this is where I am going to die" I passed so many photographers up the wall and tried to smile but at one point I passed one and he could tell I was struggling he said "you're almost there". Well we both knew that wasn't true. I turned to him and saw that he had probably been sitting comfortably on the wall for a good 5 hours watching runner after runner struggle to make it past him. I looked at him and just muttered "Lies!" and climbed passed him.
After I finally finished the wall I still had over 2 miles to run. That was the first time I knew for sure that I was going to finish the race. I told myself that if I couldn't run two miles straight that all that training was for nothing and took myself to the finish line. I passed as many people as I could and kept my eye on the prize: a gold medal and a sense of accomplishment.
Annie was waiting there at the finish line for me. She got some great shots (see link below)
After the race I was really emotional but I didn't have any water left in my body for tears. I remember just how shocked I was. I looked pretty awful when I finished. My entire body was swelled like a balloon my leg and hands were both bleeding, my knee hurt so badly and all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball.
I couldn't though because Annie and I had to figure out how we were going to get home. Unfortunately all the other trains were completely booked. We ended up staying in a hotel near the train station. We got on the first bullet train out and we were back in Shanghai by 1:00pm on Sunday. Monday and Tuesday I completed all 4 of my finals and now I am packing up all my things to fly back to America.
After I finished the race, it felt like I could accomplish anything. All of my friends wrote me the sweetest notes about how proud they were of me. Whenever I'm out with them, it's the first thing they tell people. It's so nice to know I have people like that in my life, who will wake up extra early with you because they know its going to take you twice as long to walk to school. Or to even have someone willing enough to go to the race with you for the soul purpose of taking care of you. I could not be more blessed and its so bittersweet to have leave. I know that I will be leaving Shanghai the same way I came in August. Crying, wondering how I could ever leave home.
I am not deleting any of the bad photos of me, because I think I need to keep them as a reminder that I should never do this marathon again. So when I look tired in some of the photos, it's because I am. There is a video in the folder titled "Marathon video" Its my post race feelings... There are also random pictures of a couple who got engaged after they crossed the finish line. So cute, all I got was a medal, that girl got a ring... ahahaha
See you in a few days,
Much love from Shanghai
Maddie
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