Albatros contract renewed
After the tenth anniversary run in 2009, things had returned to “normal”. But The Great Wall Marathon is always spectacular and quite unique, and of course so was this year’s run too. We had been anxious to hear whether Albatros Travel would maintain its rights to the marathon because the first contract had only been valid for ten years. Negotiations had, however, given Albatros the same number of years into the future.
Well-prepared, but strained
I had prepared myself for this run like never before. I had been training a lot since the New Year, among other things by signing up for a project through the newspaper, BT, entitled “Run Yourself Fit 2010”. Uploading the distances I had run over a period of ten weeks became a sport. I had joined a group of people who ran a lot, which was an incitement for me not only to keep up with the others, but to outshine them. This was a complete success, and I ended up with the most hours in the group. In actual fact, in the course of a week I ran an average of more than a half-marathon every day. This rather backfired on me because I ended up with a strain injury to my shin. I had to visit a physiotherapist and make do with training on my bike because I couldn’t run. I recovered, however.
As a run-up to the marathon, I completed the Helvede i Nord (Hell in the North) and the Hedeland Bjergmarathon (Heathland Mountain Marathon); both tough half-marathons with lots of hills and alternating terrain. I had always been the lone runner, but during the last month and a half before the marathon, I ran on Tuesdays and Thursday with Run for Your Life.
Extended journey
That year I signed up for travel package 1 with a return date of 17th May, but I didn’t want to have to begin my homeward journey on the morning after the gala party. I was also aware of the fact that the group’s schedule would make it difficult for me to manage all I wanted to do in Beijing, so I contacted Albatros and had them defer the return journey by two days. This meant I had to apply for a new visa, since I had originally been on a group entry document. However, everything fell into place, and I was happy.
I was to stay at the Qianmen Hotel for the third time in a row, which suited me fine.
Ash cloud threatens
But just as everything seemed to be hunky-dory, it looked as though my trip might fall through all the same. A month before my departure, the Icelandic volcano Eyafjallajökull had erupted, and the ash it started out had brought all European air traffic to a standstill for a week. In my own little egotistical world, I was pleased that this had happened sometime before I was to leave, but in the week prior to the run, the volcano erupted once again, and this time more airports were affected. In 2003, there had been problems with SARS, in 2009 with swine influenza and now came the ash cloud. One never can predict what “Our Lord” has in store for us, but this time he showed mercy, allowing me to get to China once again to run the marathon.
Jamie
This year, we didn’t have a Danish guide but were met instead by a sweet Chinese girl by the name of Chen Mei. Her family name was Chen, which in Chinese culture comes first. But in line with tradition, she had also taken an international name, which was easy for tourists to remember. So to us she was Jamie, and her reason for choosing this name was that it was similar to the French expression “J’aime”, which means “to love” in the first person. Mei is Chinese for rose. Jamie became a good acquaintance, who would turn out to be more than just a guide for me.
Impressive – perfect story
On the bus on the way to the inspection day on the Thursday, I fell into conversation with John and Ole from East Jutland. They had been friends since their youth, and both had just turned forty. John explained how he had entirely turned his life around. He used to be a long-distance lorry driver and lived a sedentary life, smoking a lot of cigarettes, eating unhealthy food and drinking pop. He ended up weighing 140 kilos and was almost totally out of condition. But in 2003, he completely rearranged his life. He started with a bicycle, which he had to push up hills to ride down the other side. But things quickly began to improve, and he became motivated to get into shape. By this time, he had lost 54 kilos. He combined cycling with running and had also run his first marathons.
Ole had also led a most unhealthy life and smoked a lot of cigarettes, but he had done the same as John, and now they were going to run on the Wall. After the marathon and the gala party, the friends were to head for Xian and then Bangkok, where they would buy bikes and cycle the 1,200 kilometres to Phuket before returning home to Denmark.
I was fascinated by their story, so I interviewed them and took photographs of them on the Great Wall. I sent the article to the newspapers in their home area, and it was published by Horsens Folkeblad, while Tørring Folkeblad and Vejle Amts Folkeblad visited the athletes on their return home and wrote a new story.
John and Ole never actually cycled through Thailand. In fact, they weren’t even able to pick up their bikes because of a state of emergency in the country resulting from demonstrations and a popular uprising. The police had bombarded demonstrators with rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas. Fortunately, John and Ole avoided all this and went on a traditional backpacking tour of the country instead.
Jixian Sports Training Base
That year we were not going to live in Jixian itself, which suited me just fine. Instead, we were accommodated just two kilometres from Yin and Yang Square at the Jixian Sports Training base. It looked very attractive from the outside, with huge facilities and tennis courts, but appearances can be deceptive. There was nothing at the hotel, absolutely nothing. The swimming pool was disgusting; everything was run down, and there was nowhere to buy anything, not even a bottle of water. There was no running water when we arrived, either. It felt as though we had left all signs of civilisation behind us.
Several members of the group were indignant and intended to leave immediately, but to me it didn’t really matter. Having been there many times before, I didn’t miss anything about Jixian itself. Nor did I miss all the touristy things and was able to pass the time without a lot of facilities.
Jamie was subjected to quite an ordeal, what with all the dissatisfied tourists. But one of the Albatros staff arrived and found solutions to some of the problems. The visitors were also given a compensation trip, and everyone ended up satisfied.
The group left on their compensation trip on the Friday, but because I had been on the trip before, I decided to spend the day on my own.
Breakfast was right on par with the hotel standard, if one can use that term in this context. It consisted of boring, cold toast and pretty disgusting ham. I don’t usually take sugar in coffee, but here I had to take three lumps just to make the taste tolerable. The fruit juice and fried egg, on the other hand, were not bad at all.
I had no trouble as such with the hotel, but just for fun I noted down various faults and efficiencies. The Internet only worked periodically, running water came and went during the day, the bath drain leaked, so the water ran out onto the floor, the shower cubicle door was leaky, there was no toilet brush, three of the shelves that evidently had been there were gone, there were teabags, but no electric kettle and there was neither a minibar, safe nor a “Do not disturb” sign. All in all, you could say there was no luxury, but I didn’t miss any of it and could easily spend a day there with what I had brought with me.
A stroll to Yin and Yang Square
In the middle of the afternoon, I went for a walk. It was cloudy and almost cold, which made it the most incredible running weather you can imagine. I naturally hoped it would be the same the following day.
I walked to Yin and Yang Square, where preparations were in full swing for the next day’s marathon. Here I got an insight into the challenges and problems that can arise when everything has to fall into place at an event of this nature.
Jamie to Denmark
On my way back to the hotel, I met Jamie, and we walked there together. She told me that she would be going to Copenhagen at the end of May for five months. As part of her education in tourism economics, she was going to work as a guide for Chinese passengers on the DFDS ferry between Copenhagen and the Norwegian capital Oslo. I gave her my business card and promised to be her guide in Roskilde, if she wanted to see the cathedral, the Viking Ship Museum and the town itself.
The pasta party that evening was held at the familiar Yuyang Hotel, but it was most unimpressive, and I would have preferred not to have spent an hour and a quarter getting there and back by bus. On the other hand, it was necessary to eat a decent meal before the tough marathon the following day.
Lie in on marathon day
As always, we had to get up early on the day of the marathon, but we were allowed to sleep half an hour longer than usual because we were living so close to the start. We arrived at Yin and Yang Square at 6 a.m., and it was not as cold that morning as it had been in other years, a portent of heat later in the day.
Firecrackers
That year, a very special Danish group was on the trip. They wore light green T-shirts bearing the name The Firecrackers (“Lynkineser” in Danish). The group had its origins in a group of 12 people, who took part in The Great Wall Marathon in 2000 and was celebrating their tenth anniversary. This group distinguished itself by having many of the fastest runners. Both the winner in 2000, Martin Steinback, and the man who followed him over the finishing line, Steen Habermann, had come along on this anniversary trip. Martin had announced on live TV back then that he would not participate in this marathon again. Ingvor, the man who encouraged me to run the 100 kilometre run on Bornholm had also come along. Our guide from 2000, Merete Skov, was no longer an employee of Albatros, but on this special occasion, she had come along to play her old role. In the meantime, she had become Mrs Habermann. But the group didn’t purely consist of people who had run before, because there were many Great Wall debutants in the group.
In terms of results, the “Firecrackers” did not make a mark as they had done in 2000, although Steen was glad that he had beaten Martin over the line this time.
A good run
My increased training bore fruit in that year’s marathon and I had been looking very much forward to keeping track of my timing with my new heart rate monitor. I had a good run in every respect, even though there had been a shortage of water when we came off the Wall for the second time. I had fortunately taken the precaution of wearing a fluid belt, which also contained three energy gels. I took the first of these shortly before the Wall and the other two on the Wall. I may well have taken too much in too short a time, because I felt a bit queasy on the last section of the Wall.
I was, however, very satisfied with my finishing time of 6:40:10. This was my next best time ever and 40 minutes faster than the previous year. It was wonderful to cross the line and receive my medal from Lars Fyhr, although it felt rather odd not to have been given it by Thomas, who wasn’t on the trip at all that year.
Kathy in a wheelchair
Kathy Loper was there as per tradition. This time, however, she would not be running because she had sustained an injury and was in a wheelchair. This had not, however, prevented her from travelling with her guests. Kathy gave me a warm welcome as well as a T-shirt.
Qianmen luxury hotel
Breakfast on the Sunday at the Qianmen Hotel was quite fantastic, although it probably wasn’t better than in previous years. But after a couple of days at the Jixian Sports Training Base it was a relief to have good coffee, fresh bread, cold meats and a chef, who would make an omelette to order. I spent the rest of the day shopping in the city, and the gala party and subsequent nightclub visit followed the usual pattern.
Defrauded
Monday’s experience of the day was when I was defrauded, and when it happened I was most annoyed and very irritated. With the benefit of hindsight, I had been taught a lesson and had a fun anecdote to tell, which in itself was worth the money I had lost.
In the evening, I had withdrawn cash from an ATM at the Silk Market and then taken a taxi back to the hotel. Here, the sequence of events later made me wonder why I had not sussed it out. The taxi didn’t drive up outside the Qianmen Hotel but drew up on the pavement opposite instead. I gave the driver a 20 Yuan note. He fiddled about with it and held it up to the light, then shook his head and refused to take it. So I gave him a 100 Yuan note, and he did the same thing a second, third and fourth time. In the end, he was satisfied, and I could get on.
After that, I went over to the hutongs and had a meal at a place where there was a sort of table barbecue that resembled a black pot with burning coals and a top plate on which to grill the meat. I had chicken and beef and beer to go with it, and it was all very delicious. When the time came to pay, I again had problems with the paper money, and it now turned out that three of the 100 Yuan notes were counterfeit.
I went back to the hotel and went to the business centre. They confirmed that the notes were counterfeit and called the Bank of Beijing. After a conversation with the bank and going through the events of the evening, I discovered that the thieving taxi driver had switched my proper banknotes with counterfeit ones. He had rejected the 20 Yuan note simply to get me to take out larger notes. By parking on the pavement opposite the hotel, he had avoided the Chinese porter, who would have seen through his deceptive trickery. I didn’t get a receipt, and he didn’t ask for a tip. But you have to admit that he had been rather crafty, although I was annoyed with myself for not having sussed out what he was up to. The counterfeit notes are now in my scrapbook of that year’s trip as a curiosity and an example.
A day too many
I had two more days in Beijing than the rest of my group, but the second day turned out to be rather superfluous. I had managed everything I wanted to, so I spent the second day going for walks, reading and watching movies on my laptop. It felt as though I was the last person from the marathon left in China. I could just as well have gone home a day earlier, although it was nice to have a relaxing day without having to stress or rush.
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