Run the Wall??

Beijing is a magical city – with thousands of years of history evident in the beautiful temples, hutongs, gardens and the Forbidden City. It is also a pulsing growing cosmopolitan city equal to New York or London and outpacing them by far with its 17 million inhabitants. Buildings are sprouting up everywhere with funky geometric shapes and lights and all the historic sites are undergoing a major face lift for the August 2008 Olympics. Traffic is on par with any other city – we spent 3 hours in a cab just to pick up our race packets!

Our main focus was the Great Wall – and the insanity we were undertaking in running it. Thursday morning we crammed onto busses at 5 am with many other maniacs and slept most of the 3 hour winding journey to the wall. There are numerous sections of the wall open to tourists – but they chose one of the more far flung for the marathon, Huangyanguan. Huangya, means "yellow cliff". The pass takes this name from the yellowish hills and rocks nearby; I was surprised they bothered to build the wall as the terrain would have been extremely challenging for an army to charge! Originally built in 557 A D, this portion of the wall was repaired for the first time in Ming Dynasty with bricks and for the second time in 1987 to allow tourists to visit.

It truly is one of the wonders of the world – it was so big over such difficult terrain it truly took my breath away! We were given lots of warnings about hydration and then bussed up the hill and told to follow the wall back to the Ying-Yang square for lunch. Armed with my camera we started out – I lagged behind as David jogged up the steps – stating I wanted to take photos of him – really I could not fathom running up some of the steps, some the height was about mid thigh for me! I think it finally sunk in for David that we would not be running the wall (a thought that never occurred to me) – but hiking it!

Saturday morning we repeated our journey only 2 hours earlier – starting out at 3 am. I have started a lot of events early – but this was ridiculous! We got there and literally froze – as it was desert like around the wall – no sun equals no warmth. Everyone was hopping up and down and they even did an aerobic session! We soon peeled off the clothes and got ready to run. I got to see David off in the first wave for the full marathon and started in the third wave for the half marathon. 1200 people were racing: 450 the full marathon, 400 the half marathon and the rest among the 10K, and 5K. We ran (or should I say briskly walked) up the hill we had been bussed up 2 days earlier – I didn’t recall it being that long. Already, locals were lined up cheering. I couldn’t resist stopping to get photos. My Leukemia and Lymphoma Society shirt got lots of comments and well wishes and I felt supported by every name I had on my shirt. I also couldn’t resist wearing a peasant hat which although somewhat prickly was great for shade and made the locals laugh out loud!

Once on the wall it was fun! I was hiking, still had energy and it was breathtaking. Toward the end of the wall, one side was missing and I got held up behind a poor man who was clinging onto it as if his life depended on it. It was too narrow to pass so I got to watch a true friend talk him through what probably was one of the more harrowing experiences of his life. After the wall it was basically dusty, hot and more dusty. We ran through a local village with lots of kids cheering and saying hello – but it was very hot and very dusty. Did I mention it was hot and dusty? Still, having completed David’s unrelenting training program and eating the sharkies and electrolyte jelly beans Marija sent me, I felt amazingly good and much to my surprise kept passing people! I finished in 2:58 (even before the first full marathon finisher - another first!) and got to take a shower, eat lunch and then boom – David was there at 4:43. I personally do athletic events for the t-shirts – and the “If you’ve done it all, try the wall slogan” on the t-shirt I now proudly own ranks up there! I want to thank everyone who sent names and donated money to one of the charities we suggested – it was nice to know your thoughts were with us and our thoughts were certainly with the names on our shirts.

We got home earlier than we thought and feeling so good we went to see Chinese Acrobatics. It was an amazing show – and the performers were amazingly young. We have lots of video with my one word commentary in the background “WOW”

Though the Wall consumed most of our time and we planned to come back again to see the rest of Beijing, we did find time to squeeze in a few other sites. Yonghegong, aka Lama Temple aka Palace of Peace, now an active Lamasery plays an important role in China’s continuing struggle with the Dali Lama (Lama means guru). It is the home of the Panchen Lama, second highest ranking lama after the Dali Lama in the Tibetan Buddhist religion. Who is the true present (11th) incarnation of the Panchen Lama is a matter of controversy: China asserts it is Qoigyijabu, while the Dali Lama in exile maintains it is Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, whom they allege to be missing since 1995 though China states that the child and his family have been taken into 'protective custody'. All attempts by members of the EU parliament and US government to garner guarantees of the family's safety have been denied. There is some speculation that with the death of the current Dalai Lama, the People's Republic of China will attempt to direct the selection of a successor, using the authority of their chosen Panchen Lama.

Controversy aside, the building and grounds were originally built in 1694 as the residence of Count Yin Zhen, the fourth son of the Emperor Kangxi, it was called "the Palace of Count Yong." After Yin Zhen became the Emperor, he continued to use it as an imperial palace for short stays away from the capital and to celebrate that status it was covered with imperial yellow tiles. In 1744, it was converted into a lamasery and is the most renowned Tibetan Buddhist temple in China outside Tibet. The rear hall, houses a marvelous statue of Maitreya (the future Buddha) made from one tree trunk. It is also noteworthy as an official entrant in Guinness Book of World Records. Most amazingly, the temple survived the Cultural Revolution unscathed, an accomplishment 99% of the other religious buildings do not share.

We next headed to the house of Soong Ching-ling, second wife of the father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen (China’s George Washington). They married in Japan on October 25, 1915 while he was in exile. She was 18 and his secretary and her parents greatly opposed the match, as Dr. Sun was 26 years her senior. Sun Yat-Sen died in 1925 but Ching-ling lived on to play an important role first as a member of the Kuomintang (KMT) Central Executive Committee but then she exiled herself to Moscow after the expulsion of the Communists from the KMT in 1927. Upon her return to China, she held many important positions and the Party renovated a prince’s mansion for her to live in. Interestingly, her younger sister, Soong May-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek), fled to Taiwan with her husband Chiang Kai-shek. Our day was ended a little early by David’s inadvertent dip into the nearby lake to save my lens cap – no pictures were allowed of that event! The day before he had rescued it when I had accidentally flung it off the wall!

The day after the race, achy and sore, we headed to see what everyone must see in Beijing, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City which face each other. We saw Tiananmen Square across the road – but spent 4 hours in the Forbidden City and I don’t think we even saw half of what there was to see. The Forbidden City was the Chinese Imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is the world's largest surviving palace complex and covers 720,000 square meters (178 acres, or 0.28 square miles). It is a rectangle 961 meters from north to south and 753 meters from east to west. The complex is surrounded by a six-meter deep, 52-metre wide moat, and an eight-meter high wall. The complex consists of 800 buildings with 8,886 rooms, 1406 are the actual Forbidden City. Construction, started in 1406, lasted 14 years and used an estimated 200,000 workers. The grand terraces and large stone carvings were made of stone from quarries near Beijing. The larger pieces could not be transported conventionally; wells were dug along the way, water was poured on the road in deep winter forming a layer of ice, and the stones were dragged along the ice. The floors of major halls were paved with "golden bricks" baked with clay from near present-day Shanghai. Each batch took months to bake, resulting in smooth bricks that ring with a metallic sound. Most of the interior pavings are six century old originals.

Numbers don’t mean much to me–it was truly the biggest thing I have ever seen. It went on and on. Building after building. Arch after arch. Garden after garden. It stretched high into the sky – pictures and words can not describe it – it is a place you need to visit. I particularly liked the audio tour we got – very high tech –it would start playing the relevant description when you got close – we didn’t even get through half of the descriptions. Some of the main buildings were under scaffolding to refurbish for the Olympics so will have to go back to see it in its full grandeur when they are done. Beijing was big and bold and in the word’s of our "beloved" California Governor “I’ll be back!”