the WALL

now, where do I begin to tell you about our week with the kids?!! it was absolutely wonderful and really would not have mattered where we were, truth be known. they are looking so good, am I more than a little biased? me thinks NOT! they arrived in macau on the monday, and here dave and I were late to meet them at the ferry (the buses do not exactly run on a consistent schedule, we were just about to give up and take a taxi when the bus came). we should have taken a taxi from the start .. oh well, live and learn. we worked the tuesday and wednesday and that gave them a chance to hop on the bus and poke around to see what macau has to offer – then we had the evenings and went to two great restaurants - that was a treat for us as well as usually we, well actually i should say, i, cannot stay up that late to eat out in the evening (you must remember this is a casino town, casino hours …!). anyways, wednesday right after school we hopped on the ferry over to hong kong, ate at yet another wonderful restaurant and then took the tram up to victoria peak (it is EXTREMELY steep – i couldn’t for the life of me look over the side as we were going up; just to give you a picture, it was so steep that the buildings looked like they were built sideways!!!!). but once we got there, i was so glad we had decided to do it (we had originally thought it would be too foggy) . the view was spectacular … and really cool at night. millions of lights and all the sky scrapers – it really was something.



in true fashion, just to keep our traveling experiences consistent – when we checked in at the airport to fly to beijing they asked if we would mind taking the earlier flight. we gladly consented as we all had carry-on backpacks and thought it would enable us extra time for sightseeing! Well! heavy emphasis on the “thought” … our particular plane ended up having mechanical “complications” and we were delayed a couple of hours. who’s to know… so by the time we arrived at the hotel it was supper time and ended up going to a traditional “peking duck” restaurant … it was good, i guess you could say … just ask craig how the jelly fish tasted!! … suffice it to say that perhaps everyone should “have the experience”, a second time, maybe not. after supper we went to a chinese acrobatic performance, which was incredible. friday we made sure to wake early (we wanted to keep our body clocks in sync for getting up early enough race day) and headed to tiamen square and the forbidden city. It was neat to see, but by the end we felt we had seen enough. THEN ON TO BIGGER AND BETTER THINGS … and what is that you ask …? …. why shopping of course!! now this was fun. we went to the silk market where everything is bartered for; clerks are EXTREMELY aggressive, it is loud – yet we did manage to support the economy a tad. we ended up for supper just back at the hotel and it was really good, and we were waited on hand and foot (we were the only ones in the restaurant) but it was good!

we were to catch the bus race day at 3:00 a.m. to go to the wall so set our alarms for 2:30. HOW CRAZY IS THAT?!!! when we arrived in the lobby at about 5 to, we found the bus driver pacing the floor, very agitated. he yells at us 'what is wrong with you, i just about to leave". i asked "did you not say 3:00 a.m.?" he ignores me. craig adds "it isn't quite 3:00 yet". he still ignores us, still pacing and still angry, so again i asked "you did say 3:00 did you not?" he yells in reply, "so you wait until 3:00 to come down?". I-YA!!! i wasn't too sure just how our bus ride was going to go after that, but it went well - considering they (the 3 guides) talked LOUD on their cell phones the whole time ...! it was a 3 hour bus trip and we nodded off a little, but not much. OH, I must back up. it should be mentioned that we really didn’t sleep well at the hotel – the pillows instead of containing like eider or foam, contained rice or wheat. it was the strangest discovery, the first time i went to pick up my nice fluffy pillow and it drops like dead weight on the bed! the bus trip did provide a really neat glimpse of the countryside and it was very pretty.

but nothing compares to being on the wall. ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE! this race was truly one of the hardest we have ever done, the stairs were so uneven, so out of whack, straight and high, or short little chips sloping down where you kind of had to run with the weight on your back so you wouldn't slip; in alot of places the steps were higher than my knee. one particular section was called “the goat path” – and it could not have been more appropriately named. you wouldn't even call them stairs, more stepping stones down (straight down) with only a chain to hang on to - i was so scared, and my quads were shaking the whole time. as we headed into the more flat portion and off the wall our legs felt like jelly, like they were going to fold under us at any time but thankfully this very weird feeling only lasted a few minutes. once we got onto the pavement we just opened up and it felt so good to get a proper stride going, i must say the next 10 miles were our best, played the little passing game (and only 2 people passed us) so that felt great. at that point i thought to myself "this race is going to be no problem". the next section, surprisingly was a 5 mile climbing loop and it was nasty! nasty! nasty! that's when i first realized how silly my previous statement was! coming out of that and heading back out through the villages was neat, but the course at that point really made me mad. you couldn't even call it a path, more of a dirt trail, but full of ruts and LOTS of big stones. i was worried about jos and craig, knowing the pace that they keep (and they did blow through that section at their usual clip - some things are best not known until after, eh!). we actually stopped at 22 miles, that was 5 hrs in – we knew the kids would be done and at that point you run through the finish area before heading up to do the wall a second time – we knew we would be walking that last 4 miles (and 1.5 hrs) and decided we weren’t really in it to race, just to do the experience – and so we went thru the finishers lane rather than continuing on. it was still incredible, and feel really good about what we did.

We found ourselves the talk of the town on the trip back to Beijing. The bus blew a tire as we were driving through a little village, conveniently in front of a tire shop. They piled us all off the bus and changed the tire there in the middle of the road.


our supper that evening was really fun, found this traditional sechuan restaurant, in a beautiful lake area, and it was FANTASTIC! needless to say, we pigged out. i felt so bad for craig and jos the next day as we said our goodbyes, here they did the wall twice and had to fly over 20 hours – we only did the wall once and only had to fly 3 hours. our legs were so sore that we could hardly lift them up a stair or over the bathtub edge, truly! they are pretty well back to normal now and we hope to get back into running starting tomorrow … that’s our plan anyways…! the only race that we have plans for is the macau half in december, no marathons at this point ... but i should say that i only have one full left on "my list" and that is dublin ... so i can't say the wall was the last of them!