Shanghai'd

Shanghai International Marathon.


The 2006 Shanghai Guoji Malasong has been my motivation the last few months to try to stay somewhat fit. Not an easy task in this city. 2 mornings each week I've been running the monotonous 600 m driveway around our apartment complex and doing long runs through the bustling Hongkou streets on Saturday morning. Laurel often accompanies me on her bike. Needless to say we draw a lot of attention - two lao wai running/biking past incredulous stares and endless "hallos".

Not nearly enough training to think I could enter the full marathon, but the half (13.1 miles or 21.1 km) turned out to be a good fit. The pancake-flat course took runners East to West across the city, past thousands of 加油 ("jia you" or literally "add oil") cheering fans. Laurel dutifully rode the side streets on her bike to meet me at the finish, but because of the closed streets and traffic, I beat her by a good half hour.

For those of you interested, my finish time:

1/2 Marathon - 1:35:09

That's a good 5+ minutes off my PR, but given the lack of training, pollution, and very slow early miles as the mass of runners thinned out along Nanjing Rd, I'll take it.

Here's a picture with me at the finish with the full Marathon winner, probably one of the Kenyans Kenyan Paul Korir, who finished in 2:15.