I climbed the wall!

Today, I climbed the wall!! I'm not talking about the marathon wall that runners hit around km 30 but rather the Great Wall of China. Does it count as a stair workout?
For more pictures and descriptions, head on over to my more travel-y blog, BuzzingInShanghai.

This concludes my divertion of your attention while I am visiting China. I swear my next post will be training related when I am back in Canada ;)

Beijing Olympic Park

After much debate between my inner coach and my inner eager beaver runner, it was decided that I shouldn't run in Beijing. The humid and hazy air is impossible to breathe and the on and off cough that I had in Shanghai is now pretty much a constant fixture here in Beijing.

I was still able to do some athlete related activities by visiting the Olympic Park! The famous bird's nest
The building where gymnasts plied their trade
The water cube, which was closed, so no swimming in the same waters as Ryan Cochrane and Michael Phelps
I had seen these lights on TV, but let me tell you they are massive and impressive. The speakers were looping the theme song non stop. I used to think it was a great song and loved it, now I don't want to come near it!
I think this is the entrance where marathoners came to the stadium.
The bird's nest was open for visit (for a hefty 50 yuan, about 8 dollars). It looks like it was hosting a car racing event not too long ago, they were busy taking down the asphalt laid over the tracks.
The architecture of the building is impressive to say the least
This is probably the kind of seat I could have afforded if I went to the events :)
This tower is familiar for anyone who watched the games on TV.
The market and sunken garden were sadly empty and looked completely abandoned.
Because of the haze, we didn't visit the forest park or other installations outside the core buildings.

Hopefully when I am back in Canada in about a week, I won't have any lasting long term effect of the respiratory difficulties I am experiencing in China and can get back to my training schedule quickly.

The walls of Xi'an

I'm in a new city called Xi'an now. We have crisper (and cold!) air and it makes a big difference while running.

I got up a the crack of dawn since we had an organised tour planned for 9am and covered myself in lots of layers since it was only 3 degrees celsius.
The first thing I noticed is how friendly Xi'an is for runners. There's wide paths everywhere (no doubt they get crowded later in the day, but this early they were pretty empty!) and there also these really cool underground underpass at busy intersections so you don't have to wait for traffic to let up before crossing!
Xi'an has a wall surrounding the downtown touristic core. My hotel is smack in the center near one of the landmarks called the Bell Tower. I proceeded to run towards the wall, wanting to check it out.
The wall is pretty impressive (I haven't seen the great wall yet so bear with my newbie wall gazing impressions) and from my calculation is about 15-20km long. I wanted to run the whole thing but quickly realised it was bigger than my original estimate of 5km long. Every now and then there's a cute structure built on the wall itself.
There's stairs to go up the wall but they were all fenced off. I'm not sure if it's because it was silly o'clock or if it is not open to the public. I will check it out later if there's time.

I ran a pretty good pace considering I would stop every now and then to have a slower look around and snap some pictures.
I wasn't the only runner on the road :)
There were a bunch of folks in a park doing some aerobics to chinese techno music
I also came across a temple
And of course some parks
Being rewarded by a beautiful sunrise over the wall was truly amazing. If I had to choose only one thing to do for the day, that would have been it.
Overall, my 10 or so km run went pretty well. Even with an average pace of 5:46m/km I was really satisfied.
There's even some parts where I put in really decent speeds (4:20m/km) which is the fastest I have been able to run in China so far... And I got back to the hotel with time to spare before the tour started!

Better air

The air seemed a bit better today so I went for a short run. Short slow runs seem to be the only thing I'm capable of here in Shanghai. I learned that if I breath only through my nose, the air is quite bearable, even if it means slowing down quite a bit. The crisp cold air of Canada seems like a luxury now after about 2 weeks in the Shanghai air.

I came upon a golf range today.
I didn't know the Chinese played golf. Apparently they fly their balls pretty high too judging by the nets surrounding the range.
I also came across this industrial looking kerosene storage facility. No wonder the air feels dirty with things like this in the area.
And this big campus of a well known Ottawa company
I like the building for this bank
I'll try to fit in another run before we leave Shanghai on Saturday. Hopefully the air in Xian and Beijing will be more conducive to outdoor exercising.

Back into the groove

After a few off days because of a digestive problem, I tried to reboot the whole system and get back into the groove today by going out for a short run. I am still surprised at how much green space there is in Pudong. It seems that whichever direction I go there are green spaces at least every kilometre. If it wasn't for the air quality, this city would be a perfect spot for outdoor activities and just lounging about lazily.
I was surprised at how considerate the Chinese were to what is sometimes referred to here as malformed persons (disabled) when I saw this huge on ramp to a pedestrian overpass until I realised that it was meant primarily for bikes!
On the way back I also spotted this garden by the side of the path, I'm wondering what they are growing...
Today's run was about 5km and it took over 30 minutes. The day was beautifully sunny, if a bit warm. I was forced to slow down because the air quality was really bad. At some point I just couldn't breath the stench of chemicals was so pungent. Maybe the treadmill doesn't look so bad after all.

The other side of Pudong

I wanted to go for a short run today. My plan to do only 5km was thwarted by the fact that this place is so interesting, I could have kept going all day! I purposely went to see another part of Pudong that doesn't attract so many tourists. I think I only saw locals throughout my run and the English signs were few and far between.

While I was stretching in the street before I started, I saw this sign informing me that the air pollution index was 51, I'm not sure if that is good or bad.
The air seems pretty clear to me so I started out anyways. I saw this cute little park after I crossed the river (water is everywhere in Pudong!)
I also noticed that downtown Pudong didn't have a monopoly on SkyScrapers.
Some ?lucky? residents have a river view :)
High-rise accommodations are also available.
I don't know why but whenever I'm travelling I love to spend time in these small alleys and look at the "stores".
Then I found this really neat park with a lake in the middle. Parks are central to Chinese life. I guess that when so many people are living close together, not everyone has the opportunity to have their own personal greenspaces, so parks act as a substitute. I won't get in the philosophy of which option is best but let me show you a few of the intersting park uses I noticed today.

Concert on the pagoda
Dancing in the park
Check out this guy's giant fishing rod!
Chilling out in the shade
And of course some people like the EndorphinBuzzer like to run :)
Not pictured is also the general walking and playing with kids. There was also a choir rehearsal going on and some kind of street party with music and food (I didn't want to intrude so I didn't take pictures).

The park features the beautiful lake
As well as some neat Bonzai trees
Once I got back on the road, I saw that downtown Pudong is not the only place under construction. Check out this new residential complex being built all at once as opposed to the one tower every few years technique we use back home.
I then proceed to visit one of these residential complex.
The first thing I noticed is the generous amount of shared space that residents can enjoy outside. I am really curious to see how the average Chinese lives and I would like to visit inside one of these but am not quite sure how that could be arranged.

I didn't realize the guard's alarmed stares until I came out of the complex where he asked me what in the world would a white guy be doing in such a place. Needless to say we didn't communicate except for my humble bowing and pointing at my eyes meaning look around. He indulged me in a smile and shooed me away :)

I ended my run at this church that is undergoing renovations (or construction?) near our hotel.
All in all, I did about 7km in a little under 45 minutes. I wasn't gunning for time anyways and am glad I took the time to take in the sights and smells. Chinese streets smell of a mix of frying, fruits, spices and paint thinner or other industrial solvents I guess are used in the construction that is going on everywhere.

Discovering Pudong

This morning I went shopping to see what around the hotel and found a sports store. I knew I shouldn't have gone in since I usually lack self control when shopping without a specific goal in mind. I was curious to see if prices would be any different. The really high-end/brand name stuff was actually more expensive with the Asics Nimbus for example about 50% more than what I paid for them in Canada. The shopping trip still resulted in a new cold weather running outfit (the entire thing for under $50! unbelievable). It's not a brand name I know but the material feels like quality and it will allow me to remember China on those long cold runs and hopefully make them go by faster :)
Once I came back to the hotel, I thought that running a bit around would be a perfect way to quickly discover and explore the neighbourhood. The weather wasn't great being mostly muggy and wet but it wasn't hell either. I wanted to make it to an area that the map describes as Century Park. My biggest failure was probably to try to memorise the map and Chinese street names and not bring the map with me (I felt it would encumber me). This failure wasn't so bad, since while I may have not seen Century Park today, there is always tomorrow and the weather may be better for pictures!
I also got to run in "Regency Park" which is as far as I can figure out a gated community for the fortunate Chinese families that can afford McMansions. More on my thoughts about this and pictures of the mansions in my other blog: BuzzingInShanghai. Here are some pictures from the more park-like features:
After getting out of the Regency Park, I figured I could still try to find Century Park. I didn't end up finding it, however I found the construction site for the World 2010 expo!
I started running back and while I wasn't focussing on speed specifically, I did pretty well overall. Shanghai has water absolutely everywhere so it makes for a really runner friendly city so far (at least the part I am in). The sidewalks are also wide and fairly quiet.
Once I got back, I turned to the snack I had gotten earlier while shopping. I was hoping that one of these two would turn out to be Coconut buns since they are my favorites.
Turns out that, while both pretty delicious, neither of them were Coconut. The long one was some kind of cream stuffing and the rounder one was stuffed with red beans. I have to figure out what the chinese symbol for Coconut is if I want to be able to identify them easily :)

Not bad for a unplanned run. 14.3km in 1h17.