A few friends of mine happened to be in China during my visit as they were running the Great Wall marathon, organised by Albatros Travel who have similar races across the globe. I decided to join them in Jixian county to watch them race.
There was a part of me that, in watching them conquer the wall, wished that I had known about this race months before and had had the opportunity to train. There was absolutely no running it with out adequate training. This is more of an adventure race than a marathon and even the front runners walk parts of the wall and run the flats. I had the opportunity to explore some of the steeper sections of the wall as I looked for a vantage point to take photos and was overwhelmed by the terrain. I take my hat off to everyone that took part in this race and respect all those who completed it.
In one of those small world experiences that leaves you pondering the nature of the universe, I ran into someone that I had earlier met in Gulmarg in Kashmir in March. She was then writing a piece on Gulmarg and was now running the Great wall marathon and writing about it for cnn.com. For more about the race, take a look at her article here.
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