10K Madness!

As I stood in a crowd of 2,600, a number large for even China, Wil turned and looked at Courtney and I saying, "Okay, I've done this before and there are a few things you need to know about a race. The first thing is that it is never exciting. There aren't any places you feel really excited like in other sports. It is just whole bunch of people running at the beginning, middle and end. Even when you cross the finish line it is just like 'Great, I'm done.'" An inspiring speech for sure as Courtney and I along with many of the other IECSers were about to run in the North Face 100 ten kilometer race. Having never done anything of this sort before I was a little nervous. For weeks before this day I'd "trained" running around the track at my school in preparation. A few moments after Wil finished telling us what we needed to know I heard a sounds and like a wave the people all around me slowly began to push forward. In the first part of the race it was easy because there are so many people the energy between everyone just seems to spur you forward. We were moving forward up the small hills that come before a mountain in the Northern part of Beijing. The view might have been breath-taking, if the the wind and running hadn't already stolen all mine away. We ran six miles along a nicely wooded area, near some beautiful mountains in the distance. The start and finish line were right beside a large lake with a Chinese pagoda in the middle of the lake. My first warning of the wind being a problem for me while running came while we were waiting to go. The lake a few hundred feet below was being pushed so hard into the side of the damn we were on that every few minutes we'd get a nice spray from it! The North Face event staff even had to relocate a lot of their booths that were originally going to be close to that side of the lake, but now stood in the mist of it all! Since the scenery was so beautiful it was a little easier to run, instead of making my way around the same track 24 times on campus. As a new runner, and someone who recognizes this is not my biggest gift, my goal for the race was just to finish. I am happy to say I finished in 1:29 and they gave us 1:30 to do it! Yes! Many of the other IECSers did very well too! Peter and his friend he brought with him, Wan Li, came in 4th and 5th place out of like 2,600 people! Shannon, Jess, and Courtney, and Ryan also all finished well. Brad, decided not to only do the 10K, but as an avid runner did the 40K. He had an amazing finishing time, especially since the race started with a 2000 step climb up a mountain! All in all in was a GREAT day and an awesome time to spend with the team.