Kevers in Japan: Race Day!!!!!

I can hardly believe I am writing about this now. It seems surreal already. I hope to run more half marathons someday, and, I can hardly believe I am saying it, but even a full, but its hard to fathom how any race could top this one.

From the start line, all the way to the finish, every step was amazing.

Besides the fact that we almost died on the way to the race...for real...we had to be up and ready to head to the wall at 3:45 am. They fed us breakfast, and we checked out, then loaded onto our buses. For some reason, however-our bus driver decided to take a short cut to the Wall instead of following the other 20 buses full of runners! After 30 minutes of trying to maneuver up a extremely narrow mountain pass, a farmer came chasing after us and demanded we stop. But we had to anyway, because the bridge we had come to was too narrow for us to cross. The bus had to turn around on the skinniest little road with a very steep cliff without guard rails on one side. It was rather terrifying...but fun...and I did not know whether to laugh or cry.

On the way!

We got to the Wall at 7, and the race started at 7:30. Everyone had already been there for over an hour getting ready. Thankfully, the bathroom lines were shorter by this time! That whole bathroom aspect of half and full marathons? A very big part of conversation and concern I realized in the running world.

We were a little excited...hence we look crazy in every picture! See my friend Susan in the green? She did the full marathon!!

All of China has a strange obsession with Christmas. We saw Christmas decor everywhere. And at the beginning of the race, there was a Chinese marching band playing Jingle Bells. How funny is that?!

I took a lot of pictures, all along the race route, they are all slightly blurry thanks to my sweaty hands and running legs, but I hope they give some idea of what we saw. I was mainly worried about the first half of the race. Three miles of steep switchbacks taking us up to the wall, then followed by several more miles of THIS!! Lots and lots of stairs. I was sure my legs were shot before I hit 10k.

The views were phenomenal, and up on the wall it was fairly cool with a breeze.

This guy and his son were just hanging out on the wall watching everyone go by. I think they hiked up with lunch and camped out all day.

Once we finished the first 7 miles, the race changed to flat dirt roads through farms and villages. I liked it almost as well as the Wall, except for the temperature which was about 92. It was a killer, I loathe running in that kind of heat. There were so many people cheering us on though and watching us run through their neighborhoods. It certainly helped in pushing through

here is part of the course...a road under construction?

I loved running down these narrow alleys, and they were very common

I was constantly being given flowers by the children as we ran..

The last two miles were hard...I was so tired...but the feeling of crossing that finish line was phenomenal!!

The finish line was a giant party. Since we had had lots of bus rides, hotel stays, and meals with other runners, we got to know a lot of them. Here is Roberto, our stinky Italian friend. We ran into him everywhere, and he always wanted a picture. He was always stinky! He had the thickest Italian accent, and was just the nicest guy!