One morning, we were approached by one of our favorite trainers; Wanjian with an interesting question for us. He informed us that this year, the Inner Mongolia Marathon would be held in Tongliao and that the city was very excited to be hosting this annual event. We thought he was going to ask us to come and watch him run, but that was not the case. Instead, the gym wished to sponsor us and we would run as a team. So in other words, the gym wanted to show their Americans off at the marathon!
He added that since we were V.I.P. (we are??), we would get a t-shirt and hat for the race and we were allowed to ask the rest of the group, who are not members at the gym, if they wanted to join the race. We told him we’d think about it and discuss it with the others. Our first reaction was “absolutely not!” A) Yeah, we run everyday, but we haven’t been training for a marathon. And B) It is the middle of sandstorm season, so we’d probably have to wear masks while we ran…It is so unhealthy to breathe the air over here, especially for 26 miles.
When we got home we asked the rest of the group, and received two immediate “No’s” (Actually they were more like “HELL NO’S” After further discussion, the five of us agreed to run the half marathon. And why did we decide to do this? Because, why the hell not!! We’re in China!
As race day approached, one of our five dropped out because she had the flu, so we were down to four. Each morning at the gym, our trainers asked us if we were excited, but we just laughed and asked ourselves, “What are we doing?”
On race day, another one of us dropped out 20 minutes before we left our apartment, leaving me, Kim, and Julianne still laughing on our way to the city. When we got there, we realized that we were not the only VIP running for the gym. The gym also asked the Pakistani med students. (There are a group of Pakistani med-students at the University in Tongliao and we discovered these additional foreigners just months ago). It was a pretty fun situation; our team was multi-cultural! (The American girls, the Pakistani guys and the Chinese trainers).
So we were all dressed in our uniforms and the three of us looked ridiculous in our size XL shirts. It looked like we were running in dresses. We jogged to the sports square in the middle of the city for the start of the race. As the leaders of the city and the province gave their speeches, all of the newspaper and television cameras were on us!
As the race began, we had cars with the same cameras driving next to us the entire time! As I ran, I thought to myself, “You’ve taken fifty pictures of me so far, I’m only going to look worse the more I keep running!!” They followed our every step like we were in the lead, but no, it was just the American girls running in a marathon in the middle of INNER MONGOLIA! About five minutes into the race, two Pakistani’s in front of us stopped and said, “Okay guys, we’re going home. See you later!” It was the funniest thing, I think they just wanted to the oversized t-shirts.
These are the male marathon winners.
(These are the female marathon winners. As they stood on the podium, they were so serious. No one smiled!)
Overall the race was really fun but the Mongolian wind was killer! Julianne actually placed third for the women and received a cup. This was the most low-key race I’ve ever seen. There were no clocks or timers, so no one knew their times and I think only 10 women finished the half marathon!!! As we left, we were all laughing and in disbelief. Another crazy thing to check off of our lists. Oh China!
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