Winter 2006

Conquering The Great Wall

A return to China for a thirteen-mile race, at age 71
Jinshanling, China

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HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED

We landed in Beijing on May 16, 2004, and joined our marathon tour group. The first days we visited the beautiful Summer Palace, fantastic Forbidden City, huge Tiananmen Square, and unique Underground Beijing as we battled jet lag. It was so delightful to be back “home” in China, the country of my birth, surrounded by Chinese people, language, and customs.

After a few days in Beijing, we flew to Xi’an to see the archeaological wonder — the thousands-strong terra cotta army. Very impressive! We also visited the enormous Bell Tower, the Big Goose Pagoda, and the Great Mosque.

We returned to Beijing pretty well acclimated to time, food, and weather, and ready to “conquer the wall.” On Thursday, before the Saturday race, all runners had a mandatory wall inspection trip.We took the bus to Jinshanling, eighty miles northeast of Beijing, to a section of the wall seldom visited by tourists. The “inspected part” was four miles long.We climbed and descended steep, irregular steps, through a tower, up more steps, through another tower, down steeper steps, and so forth. One section had no wall on the left side, and we went single file holding on to a rope. The left hand drop-off was straight down the mountain.We didn’t race during this inspection; instead we enjoyed the magnificent view and took many pictures along the way. But always in our minds was the knowledge that we must do this again soon and at a swifter pace.

On race day, after a two a.m. wakeup call and breakfast, we boarded a bus for the village where the race began. It was quite cool; I was glad I had brought sweats. The toilets were of the squat variety with which I was acquainted and didn’t mind, but others did.

When the gun fired, we were off, up the hill to the Great Wall.We warmed up quickly and got thirsty. The race provides water at every mile. I poured some on me and drank the rest.

The course was every bit as difficult as I remembered, but I was moving much faster. The descent from the wall to the road was a steep, rocky, narrow trail.We passed the start area again, and the crowd cheered us on as we headed to the villages.Many Chinese children ran alongside briefly and some stood along the way, hands up for a highfive. Villagers waved and said “hello’”and we said “ne hao.” I was delighted to reach the turnaround and even happier to see the finish line and hear the chirp-chirp as I crossed the mat.

I finished the thirteen miles in three hours and eleven minutes. Most people take an hour longer than their usual time to run this half-marathon and two hours longer for the full marathon. Of the four hundred of us who ran the half, I was the oldest female at seventy-one.We ran up and down 1,800 steps. Two hundred runners tackled the full marathon, with double the number of steps.We came from twenty countries.

All finishers received a beautiful medal, plenty of food and drink, and loud cheers as they crossed the finish.We spent a recovery day following the race and had a big banquet that night. On May 24 we boarded our plane, saying a sad farewell to China.

Locke has lived in Bristol, Tenn., for some forty-five years. She taught biology and chemistry for thirty years at a local high school before retiring in 1992. She spent her first five years of retirement in the Peace Corps, teaching in Nepal and later in the Philippines. Now “I’m really retired and back in Bristol, where I enjoy my grandchildren, tutor English to immigrants, tend my vegetable garden, run, swim, and hike.”