Adventures in China

Mike C

Flyer Mike C has spent much of the past year in China.  Last June, he wrote about racing in Shanghai.  Below, is his account of some of more recent adventures (not including the birth of his wonderful baby boy, Henry!).  - The following was compiled from Mike's e-mails to several of his Flyer friends.  -- Dave K, Flyers Blogmaster

February 15, 2012

I’m writing this from the Bullet Train from Beijing to Shanghai. 4 hours and 45 minutes for a distance from New York to Chicago. They slowed the train down after the highly publicized train crash last year to make people feel safer (so 4:45 hours instead of 4:00). I’m near the front of the train so I probably won’t remember anything if there is an accident! Running has been better than I had expected.

Among other runs, late last week I did an out-and-back from the hotel in the Shanghai French Concession (think UWS) down Huaihai Road (think 5th Ave) to river front (think west side along the Hudson River but a lot shorter). It was raining so I didn’t expect to see a lot of runners but there were four of them out there. They seem excited to see the fresh blood. That was about an 8-mile run. I had forgotten in China that cars don’t stop on a right turn on red….need to remember that! Pollution wasn’t too bad although I could feel it to some degree. I think this will be my during the week “loop.”

Night View - Shanghai Huaihai Road

On Sunday I was going to run with the Shanghai Hash House Harriers. I had a plan to have one drink after the run and then run for the exits, but their run was too late in the day since I had to go to Beijing. Hash Harriers is the only running group in town so I’m going to give it a shot.

But for now I instead took the subway to Century Park in Pudong (think Queens). The park is 5K square and you have to pay about $1.5 to enter! I saw about 10 other runners while I ran one and a half loops around it and then decided to run back to Puxi (the other side of the river). The air is cleaner out there and there's a lot of space as it is a new community (basically it didn’t exist 10 years ago and now millions of people live out there). So this will be a good place to run on weekends.

Century Park, Pudong

In Beijing I had to run on a treadmill because the pollution is bad during the winters from so much coal being burned. The hotel had new treadmills, with a good view, but all in the metric system so I need to convert back to the metric system fairly quickly.

Otherwise I’m working, trying to find a place to live, and eating a lot of great food. Despite being in China I can’t seem to kick the Starbucks habit. There are two Starbucks within 50 meters of the Shanghai hotel, two within 20 meters of my Shanghai office and one within 10 meters of the Beijing office. So I’m still drinking way too much coffee!

April 28, 2012 -- Day Before the Hangzhou Half Marathon

Okay, so the bus ride out to the Hangzhou Half didn't work out too well. Totally got lost but I found it two hours later. It was interesting being lost in such a small Chinese city since they don't see many foreigners. The town is known for its canal, which was build around 600 AD....they have old stuff over here.

I'm staying in the official hotel and they had a group dinner for the runners. The African Runners are out in force. There were tables of Kenyans and Ethiopians. I sat down next to a young runner from Eritrea...his English was not good, and all I could get out of him was that he was fast and that he wanted to use my phone to call home. It was fun to watch all of the African runners have difficulty using chop sticks. As expected in China, they were of course serving beer and I managed to convince the Eritrean runner to have a few sips. The Chinese runners at my table were consuming rather briskly as were all of the Japanese runners. One Chinese runner who is maybe 20 is planning on an 82 minute half...if only i could do that.

I met one runner from Japan who has been the official translator for Japanese baseball players playing for the SF Giants and NY Mets. He's going to introduce me to Japanese running.

I'll be wearing my NY Flyers shirt out there tomorrow.

April 29, 2012 -- Day of the Hangzhou Half Marathon

The Half went reasonably well despite the fact it was extremely hot and humid. There were good, bad and weird parts:

• The Good. It was generally a very well organized race. And the crowds were as large and as loud as at the NYC Marathon, which really kept us going. People were very friendly and I met a lot of folks at the start and the finish. At the finish, many of the Chinese wanted to have their picture taken with me!
• The Bad.  In-line skaters used the race as an opportunity to ride on the roads and most of them were weaving in and out between the runners….really annoying! There were no time corrals with close to 30,000 people so it made the start just a tad slow!! The race used the time chips (like NYRR used to) and the queue to give back your trip and collect the deposit was about 45 minutes (the banking system in China cannot support automatic refunds).
• The Weird. At the finish, a number of people went to the medical tents for help. The media filmed each of them while they were in distress, including being loaded onto ambulances in a couple of cases.

May 20, 2012  -- 16 Hours in the Mountains!

Saturday I did an all-day Hash in the mountains about 3 hours outside of Shanghai (near Ningbo). The day started at 10am and ended at 2am. Every part of my body is in pain. I thought Cat Hill training with the Flyers Tues/Thurs 6AM group on the first Tuesday of every month from dead of winter through steamy summer had me prepared for anything...but I was wrong.

Mountains Near Ningbo

It was raining in the forest so I fell on my rear three times trying to catch bamboo trees on the way down. Some of the uphills were so steep I was on my hands and knees trying to climb up using my new friends -- the bamboo trees! It was like boot camp. I was head to toe covered in mud. But the views from the mountain tops overlooking the villages were spectacular.

I was just thankful that on today's run my legs were still working with no injuries. I honestly had a great time, but would have preferred to run the Brooklyn Half with you guys.

July 7, 2012 -- Inner Mongolia Half Marathon

Last weekend I ran a half marathon in a remote town in Inner Mongolia. The scenery was incredible. It was my first off-road run and it was more difficult than I had thought it would be to run off road. It was made more difficult by the fact that the kilometer markings were off the mark, so when the finish line seemed imminent there was another sign that read 1K to go….even though I thought I had just finished my final sprint!

Post-Race Beer with the Locals

I managed to come in 10th place at 1:48. Most of my friends from Shanghai ran the full marathon. One of the women won first place among the women and one of the guys came in 3rd place among the men.

My Hotel Room -- a Mongolian Yurt

After the race the organizers took all of the runners to a field where we had dinner, more beer than I care to think about and a bonfire. We stayed in traditional Mongolia tents (yurts).

-Mike C