Beijing Half-Marathon

No, I didn't run it. Only someone completely out of their mind would run for miles along the streets of Beijing.

Luckily, there's one person in the program who fits that description, and his name is Miles Grimshaw (blogger extraordinaire... I guess). You can read his much more personal account of the morning here.

Miles, whether due to his captivating charm or outright bribery techniques (the promise of buying us food), convinced my friend Liz and me to wake up at 6 AM this morning to travel to his race's starting point at Tiananmen Square. As if the 6 AM wake-up call wasn't bad enough, one look outside indicated that it was going to be a gloomy, miserable day. And gloomy it was. The only brightness to be seen amongst the racers were the points of fluorescent yellow that marked the officially distributed tote bags. You can see as we're exiting the subway just how many tote bags were on their way to the starting line:

It's easy to forget how many people there are in Beijing (and the world) until they start crowding into one place. That's what was waiting for us across the street, as well as what was before us as we exited the subway station and made our way to the Tiananmen Square entrance:

Unfortunately for us, once we got down to the security checkpoint, we were rather abruptly stopped by a guard who said only race participants could continue beyond that point. It was so frustrating because friends and family of other competitors were obviously going along their merry way in front of us (mostly by surging along with the crowd), but so goes rule enforcement in China. Sometimes there are just too many people so you only try to catch a few. Today, we were those few. Well since we (Liz and I - the cheerleading squad) had to leave Miles, we stopped for about ten minutes right at the entrance to help him prepare. I had never stopped to think about all the preparation that goes into running obscenely long distances. After Miles was all prepped out, we took a quick group picture, then went to our respective posts -- Miles to his starting line, Liz and I to various vantage points to see him (see picture below for Team Yale... or Awesomeness, whatever works):

Of course, just as we parted ways, the skies opened up and it began to rain. I'm not sure if rain is good or not for a marathon runner, but for me it was just unnecessarily cold and wet. Although I will say, seeing the incredible mass of people gathered in Tiananmen was incredible. The energy in the air, too, was something that I don't think I had experienced before. Also, how many bureaucratic strings had to be pulled to allow such a large gathering of people at such a sensitive location? Interesting... but I digress. 

I got into position across the street from the Square on the north side, directly in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tiananmen Gate) with Chairman Mao's picture hanging off. And then the race started, and the mass of humanity just spilled out in waves in front of me. They just didn't stop. I had no idea how I was going to see Miles in this mess, so I just got the camera rolling in hopes of going back and finding him later. Here are my efforts:

Note just how dark the sky got in the fifteen or so minutes between the pictures above and this video. It was a mess. Also notice that the camera sadly didn't focus on Miles as I zoomed in (I was more disappointed than Miles, to tell the truth). It should also be noted that in my determination to get a picture of Miles actually running, I myself participated in the marathon for about 30 seconds as I ran from one side of Tiananmen Square to the other... in BOOTS! Here's the resulting shot (see the tall blonde in red?):

From there, it was a mad dash to the subway to transfer over to where the half-marathon ended. Liz and I joked about how funny it'd be if Miles beat us to the destination. Maybe running is actually the fastest method of transportation in Beijing? But let's be serious, even if running IS faster, I would definitely still be opting for the subway. We got to the finish line with plenty of time, about 20 minutes before Miles finally arrived. Here's his triumphant finish:

Needless to say, Miles was completely soaked. With some judicious use of a roped-off hallway in the subway station, he was able to change into clean, dry clothes. I was particularly thankful for this as we were off to have brunch at the group's favorite spot, Bridge Café, and I didn't feel like smelling the results of running a half-marathon... Poor Miles, though, it took him forever to get warm. I thought my feet were bad (the rain had soaked through the suede and my thick socks), but Miles' whole body had been soaked by the nasty rain. It took him the entire subway trip and a good cup of hot chocolate before he finally got warmed up. As a visual demonstration of just how cold a person would get after running in those "apocalyptic" conditions (his word), here's just how much he was bundled up at brunch:

We ended with the great company of almost every Yalie in the program, as well as a few Stanford kids. It was a happy way to spend the late morning-early afternoon, especially since Miles set a new personal record! All in all, it was a great bonding experience for everyone, and just one of those quirky, unique things that is making this semester abroad so much fun. :)

24 hours later...
Might need to bundle up better next time as I was bedridden for most of the day getting over a small cold I KNOW I caught from the icky Beijing weather.