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| Lazy, unmotivated Zach prepares to run a marthon. |
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m actually a fairly lazy, unmotivated person..honestly! Look at me! Some of the friends that I appreciate the most are the ones
who are outgoing, social, and devilishly good at exercising peer pressure.
These people abuse your committed, loyal friendship and manipulate you into
doing things that you perhaps otherwise would not have contemplated doing (I
would love some reader feedback on these). Generally these people are not
appreciated. My personal opinion on this topic, however, is that these people
are in fact underappreciated. It is
not coincidental that the vast majority of these instances I have openly
considered out loud and thus receive stark criticism from one or both of my
parents. Also not coincidental is that the vast majority of these instances
were awesome and I don’t have any regrets (note - vast majority does leave room
for exceptions to the rule..)
About
two weeks ago I had one of those moments when I felt compelled to act out. Long
story short I made the abrupt decision to go to the Great Wall for a walk..a
long walk..in fact, a very long walk. Sometimes bad decisions end badly and
other times they end well. Historical example, if Ben Franklin had
listened to his wife and not gone outside in a rainstorm to fly a kite with a
key attached, my Chinese neighbor’s duck would have one less feather and I
would be dipping that feather in ink right now to finish this sentence rather than using a keyboard. So around 10
maybe 11 days ago I was feeling pretty bold. Long story short, I run into Friend A who is dropping out the upcoming Great Wall marathon, nab the
registration spot for Friend B, and somehow end up running it myself. It is still unclear how this development came
about, but it the impetus originated in a conversation I was having with Friend B about being in awesome shape. We were lamenting the post-college,
post-college athletics psychological disappointment – probably closely related
to the kind that Junior Seau was experiencing before he decided to, well, run a
very very long marathon..There is an exhilarating feeling being in the best
shape you can be, feeling like a champ, running around doing physical feats
that were previously unimaginable, so a watered down, slightly heavier, less
muscular version of myself was hoping to recover this feeling. A little bit of beer, one good friend, and this is how this idea came to manifestation, and I was now running a marathon in 8
days.
Day 7 - Hungover from day 8.
Day 6 – Still completely unaware of what this task entails,
I begin to post advertisements on the internet to buy a dropout’s registration..carbo
loading begins – noodles for dinner
Day 5 – No responses yet from the internet ads and not
promising response from the marathon organizer..That evening I play basketball
for 2 hours, 11 of 15 players show up so I run for nearly two hours..feels
great
Day 4 – Finally through the friend of a friend of a friend I
get a lead. Call the number and find the runner at the airport on his way to
LA, verbal confirmation of ticket exchange, success! Decide another run is
necessary to complete “training”. I eat noodles for dinner.
Day 3 – 6am wake up call. Shoes on, ipod in, out the door by
6:10. My plan is to run for time to assist coping with the mental challenge
that lies ahead. As the sun rises, so does my spirit, and I run 14km in the
ballpark of 90min roughly. I feel good then realize that is only 1/3 the length
of a marathon. Noodles for dinner.
Day 2 – Ouch. Tired muscles hit. I knew this would come and
am stretching regularly, including at work. The water cooler chatter continues
to unnerve me and I start getting sweaty palms when thinking about the great
wall..or even when I look at a wall..or stairs..I live in a house with walls
upstairs..not good! In the evening I take a jog to remove lactic acid, eat more
noodles, and stretch again (stretching helps endurance, no?)
Day 1 – My friend arrives from Shanghai and we are clearly
excited about the upcoming challenge. Plan of attack, noodles for dinner
(again, it’s called carbo-loading), bed at 10pm
ARMAGEDDON – 2:45am, the alarm clock rings. Fuck. I pull
myself out of bed, gather my things, and we make it to the Beijing
International hotel to jump on a bus with other runners and drive 2 ½ hours to
the Great Wall/course. We arrive at 6am and full-fledged, intense jazzercise to
“Blue” by Eiffel 65 begins. I have no choice but to begin to wake up. Around
7:10 I go pee for the 4th or 5th time then put Vaseline
on my nipples. Take a photo (not of my nipples) and send it to my old lacrosse
coaches..motivation. Up to this point I had effectively told no one, but now
that I have, I know someone will be asking. Gotta finish now! 7:25-7:35 we line
up, 7:40 BANG! We’re off!
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| And to think I was excited to run at this point. |
So I’d like to first explain the layout of the race. 3
corrals all start 10 minutes apart. The first 8.5km and last 8.5km are the same
(up a hill down the wall, up a wall down the hill) with the other 25km running
through rural road/village. Runners must begin the second section of the wall
before the 6hr mark or will be cut off for fear of being left on the wall
overnight..no joke.
KM 1-5 – Easy, but I realize now it’s a dirty trick to make
runners start a marathon on a 5km, 250meter incline stretch. At this point the
adrenaline is flowing and the Jimi Hendrix pumping through my headphones has
never sounded better. At the end of
this stretch we approach the entrance to the Great Wall (from here referred to
as GW).
KM 5-8.5 – Standing on the GW just after day break is
amazing. Never done it before, and hope to never do it again. I understand now
why this wall was an effective defense mechanism. If any foreign power had ever
gotten on top of it, they would have to stand there and wait in line to use the
stairs down..like I did during the marathon. I am too excited to stand and
foolishly try to keep moving forward in line past the voices going “easy now
but we’ll see on the way back!” which do not seem to register. I ignore them and plunge down
the 300m stair descent continuing to hear seemingly irrelevant comments about
the way back. Time check, 2 hours.
KM 8.5-16 – Now at the bottom of the wall and able to make my own pace I take off for the
midpoint, my goal. Once reached it’s all downhill from there, no? (what a terrible
analogy in this story) KM 16 is notable
because it is the first time I see a distance sign. After running for what
seems like an hour (probably was) I am only at KM 16. What the hell. This
sucks, I’m tired, they didn’t shut down traffic so not only do I have to give
high 5’s to every village child that I run by, but also I have to run through
dust clouds and tractor smoke from passing traffic. Oh yeah, and now I’m
looking uphill again.
KM 16-22 – A mental test. Where the strategy of marathon-ing
comes into play. The alpha in me decides that I can’t walk to much, so up to
km17 I try this jog 100m walk 100m strategy. N-o-w-a-y. Running uphill at this
point is just stupid, it’s so dumb. Kinda like that rapist in Alabama was..so
stupid, man he duuumb!! Thinking that I’ve only run 2km more than my singular
training session I feel as though I’m nearing my tank. I begin to think of
excuses of why I won’t make the 6hr cutoff back at the wall. I won’t recite any
of them because they were all shit, and stupid, so duuumb. I relegate myself to
a fast walk and jogging on flat surfaces. There are no flat surfaces though,
just a hill whose incline increases as we reach km22. WHAT THE F@ck! Who
designed this course? Clearly Satan.
KM 22-26 – Finally a runners rejoice. The top of an uphill
also known as the top of a downhill. I begin to cruise pretty well and realize
that my abs are not tired nor legs. I am just in pain. Things hurt. Most
specifically between my shoulder blades, my right knee, the bottoms of my feet,
and the two large blisters I can feel forming. At km sign 26 I ask the guy for
a time check, 4:15, I manage to burst out, “I’m gonna make it!”. The assistant
laughs at me, perhaps scornfully because he knows as I’m shouting this the
winner of the marathon has been already rested for 30 minutes…L
KM 26-27 – Another fucking hill! No chance..I power walk and
meet some old people. The dude has done 60+ marathons, he reminds me that no
matter what today will be my personal best..Motivation!
KM 27-30 – This section I think was actually made by the
devil. It was actually probably harder then running anything normal. Some idiot
made this section billy-goal-trail style with all sorts of rocks sticking up as
you run on a 1m wide path. Not difficult except for the fact that any cartilage
I had in my knee was destroyed from the uneven surface.
KM 30-34 – Off the billy goat trail from hell and back on
hot pavement, I begin to learn what it’s like to run without cartilage in a
knee. Ouchies! Besides running from leftßàright on the road
staying to the shaded side, I get honked at by a car. Fuck you, douche! At this
point top speed is about 4-5km/hr. I can maybe get 300m in one stretch until
undone by pain. I do the math, time is on my side. I reach the final section at
a time of 5:10 and 8.5km to go.
KM 34-42.195 – Great Wall section 2.
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| This picture is a lie, at this moment it was nowhere near this beautiful. |
I take my first step
and a deep breath and decide I’m going to bang them out. BANG, BANg, BAng,
Bang, bang, flop. That’s me sitting down for the first time. I look down, I’ve
gone maybe 10m vertical. Only 290 more to go. I get into this rhythm of moving
until I feel like collapsing and then sitting for a while. I do this a few more
times and look down again. Now I’ve gone maybe 15m vertical. Shit, maybe I should
I have trained. Overrated! These things are about willpower, not wasting your
time! Not much to say about the next 290meters except that I a) ended up baby
crawling up some portions and covering myself in grime and dirt b) completely
lied down for 10-15 minutes because my feet/hands/lips were all numb and was
getting dizzy and c) have never been closer to seriously considering pissing my
pants, while sitting down, with energy, just because it would take more energy
and two hands to pee normally (I thought I might just fall down the side of the
mountain – at the time it made sense..i swear).
So at some point while I was hitting rock bottom, thinking about adding
pee to the filth that I was lying in already, and getting no sympathy from a
medic, it all sort of just..passed. Who knows what it was, or why it happened,
but some dude walked by me who I’d seen some X kilometers back and it happened
to be about the same time I decided to keep making an effort, and for whatever
reason this whole “phase” just passed (yes it sounds like puberty or some
emotional cycle, but apparently it was..I guess I was just being a little bitch
and had to get over it!). I slowly managed to climb with my new friend, an air
traffic controller from Miami, to the top of the incline and it was downhill
from there on. Nevermind that at this point my knee was so busted from
overcompensating for other weak muscles and it felt like there was no cartilage,
but I managed to meet another person with 0 knees and we paced ourselves to the
finish line over the last 5km. And I won’t lie, I walked right up to the point
where you re-entered the village to cross the finish line, and as soon as I was
about to walk through the wall, I started jogging, and you know what? It felt
good, my knee didn’t hurt, and just like that I crossed the finish line.
Obviously I’d like to mention that
while this was a fantastic experience, I don’t recommend it by any means.
Somehow, though, I feel that no one else besides me needs this type of
encouragement or advice and do not lack the common sense function that I must
be missing. This was my first distance race ever, 5k, 10k, half, full,
whatever. First of all, mad respect for everyone who finished this trek. I got
beaten easily by geezers over twice my age and have absolutely no shame about
it. This shit was HARD. And those old people ran the shit out of it. Also, the
culture and atmosphere surrounding this event was so unique. Honestly, I think
the most accurate comparison would be to a music festival where you substitute
energy gels for acid and a little bit of crazy for the pot that people would be
smoking. I was with people on the wall
at first that I lost and didn’t see until I was on it a second time. KM 17-22 I
went back and forth with some guy who was in the group with the girl that I
walked the final 5km with. You see the same people over and over and have this
snippets of conversation that provide considerable amounts of motivation,
inspiration, and goodwill. It was like in a music festival when you’re next to
that guy who needs a lighter so you give him one and in return he smokes you out.
And then you see him the next day say hi again then realize he has taken too
much acid or something and you get him an ambulance. Very cyclical with many
paths crossing and re-crossing. I found that I was able to pull a lot of
support from the other runners. That e-mail to JP and Kenny also didn't hurt, because I knew I’d
have to answer to someone whenever I was finished.
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| All the recognition I need |
In the end, whatever be the
motivation you need, it’s all gravy, all inconsequential. I reminded myself
that when you step up to the plate and you need to get something done..well, you
just do it.
