Running in Shanghai

Before coming to Shanghai I wasn’t a big fan of endurance sports. I was much more likely to be seen burning calories on an ice rink or a soccer field than pounding the pavement. I attribute this partly to the fact that I grew up in the suburbs and was never too far from an ice rink and or park. Since moving to Shanghai though, the opportunity to play team sports diminished quite a bit. I still spend Sunday’s in the spring and fall playing a pretty competitive level of softball, but Monday through Saturday was leaving a pretty big void.

A couple of friends of mine have always encouraged me to start getting into endurance sports. They run 10k’s, half marathons, and triathlons all of the time. One even travels to Asia every other year to compete internationally. I have always dismissed their suggestions as “not for me” because I thought running/biking/swimming was boring. Things changed this summer when I decided to do Shuan T’s “Insanity” workout program. For those of you unfamiliar, it is probably the most intense home training program on the market. It makes P90X seem easy. After completing the 60 day program (in about 70 days because I couldn’t keep up), I was probably in the best shape I had been in a very long time – maybe ever. I wasn’t motivated enough to start over and do 60 more days of insanity, so I decided that I needed a new goal. Enter endurance sports.

I started to set my sights on doing triathlons. The reason being is that I just couldn’t imagine myself running over 5 miles at a time, let alone 13 or 26. Thus, I decided that mixing in three activities might be more exciting. A couple of problems: 1 – I didn’t have a bike, 2 – I didn’t have any swim equipment, 3 – the only triathlons I could find were outside of China. Apparently endurance sports are not the most popular activity in Shanghai. I have solved two of the problems by buying a very nice Specialized bike and all new swimming gear. What I couldn’t fix was the fact that there were not any triathlons in the area. So in the meantime, I focused my attention on running… which is where the interesting part of the blog begins.

My ultimate goal is to compete in a half Ironman. I was hoping to compete with my friend in Singapore in March, although I am not sure a half Ironman is a great idea for my first tri. In the meantime, I have decided to register for two events. The second is the Shanghai half marathon on December 5^th. I am still pretty nervous about running 13.1 miles at one time, but I have been training diligently and think I will be ready. The first event I ran was the Nike Shanghai 10k. This event took place in the Songjiang university district on the west side of Shanghai. Let me just say the runners were an interesting bunch.

I coaxed my Dad’s driver into picking me up at 6 AM and taking me out to Songjiang (about an hour from downtown – Shanghai is a big city). Registration was supposed to be from 6:30 to 7:30, with the event starting shortly there after. “Shortly there after” is a relative term in China. Since I arrived around 7, I was signed in and ready to go in plenty of time. Unlike events organized in the US, the starting area of the race wasn’t divided by the expected pace that the runners plan to run at. Instead, in true Chinese fashion, all the Chinese people decided that they needed to push their way as close to the start-finish line as possible. Also in Chinese tradition, the event organizers had split the groups into two classes. The common people (which I was apart of) was kept about 100 yards from the start finish line. In the “special group” the organizers had arranged for a local fitness trainer to lead people in calisthenics. What was particularly strange is that these individuals were probably the same people that had no business running 10k in the first place. There were out of shape people, people in jeans, and others wearing loafers all sweating to the pretty low impact exercises. Meanwhile, I was crammed like a sardine with the 10,000 Chinese students that were not part of the special group. After fifteen minutes of “yòu biān”-“zuǒ biān”, which means “right side-left side” we thought the event was starting. They dropped the rope and let us jog to the start/finish line. To our surprise, there was another rope at the actual line and now we had just run into the group of Jane Fonda imitators. The event coordinators were not too pleased. The stage was set up back where we had come from and they decided that 25 more minutes of speeches and introductions was necessary. Then, all of the sudden, without much notice the final rope was dropped, the clock started and we were off.

I thought this event was scheduled to be a 10k. Normally, a 10k requires a pretty consistent pace to complete the entire thing without passing out. This strategy was lost on about 70% of the Chinese students that were registered to run. It seemed like we were in a 100M sprint as people with backpacks, jeans, and dress shoes went flying by me in the first few meters. Needless to say I passed about 90% of these people within the first few kilometers as they had already begun walking or barfing on the side of the road. Certainly an interesting site watching 10-20 Chinese students losing their breakfast before the 2 km mark. I have to admit that I was a bit thrown off by the early pace. I had my training software set to tell me my pace every 1 mile. First update: 1 mile in 6 minutes 20 seconds. My response….oh shit! I was not prepared to run over 6 miles at a sub 7 pace. I was planning on about an 8 minute pace. After the first mile I knew I was going to be in trouble.

I ended up scaling down my pace to a more reasonable rate and ended up finishing my first 5km in 22 minutes and 30 seconds and finished the entire 10k in 46:14 (7:26/mile). This was about 3 minutes 30 seconds faster than my goal. I was happy about that, but my legs and body disagreed. It probably didn’t help that after the event I spent the afternoon walking around Sheshan Golf Club watching Tiger and Phil in the HSBC World Golf Championship. The race day proved a couple things to me. 1 – a half marathon is going to be a long run. 2 – I need to do much better at pacing myself. 3 – Chinese college students are terrible judges of their athletic abilities.

My training for the Shanghai half marathon has continued with me running 4 days a week. I typically put in between 5 and 10 km. The best part about training is running through the streets of Shanghai. Each run is full of excitement due to the looks I get from Chinese people wondering who is chasing me and the constant excitement of almost getting hit by cars/trucks/bikes/pedestrians/buses. On yesterday’s run I made the mistake of turning down one of the busier streets in Shanghai. Since the streets were packed with people it was going to be impossible to run on the sidewalk. Traffic was hardly moving so I decided that using the shoulder was a safe bet. Little did I realize that the shoulder was reserved for “bumper bikes.” I was about halfway down the street as an older gentleman on a bike pulled out directly in front of me. I figured that he was on bike and I was on foot he would likely be moving faster than me so I pulled up behind him. I was wrong and this guy was seriously slowing down my pace. So I juked left, split two cars and came back out in front of this guy. Apparently that must have had a negative impact on his “face”, because he was not happy that I passed him. I didn’t realize this until I felt the guys tire ramming the back of my leg. Not once, not twice, but three times in about 10 strides. As I turned over my shoulder to see what the deal was, I saw the same guy I had just passed with a slight grin on his face. Apparently giving me tire burns was hilarious to him. I tried to let it go and picked up the pace a little bit. About two blocks later he had caught back up and tried to bump me again. This time I was prepared. I side stepped his tire, which put him right next to me. An “accidental” nudge of my elbow into his handle bar sent the guy veering off into the guard rail. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him fall rather harmlessly onto the side walk and yell something at me in Chinese. I felt bad for about .5 seconds until I looked down at my left leg and saw the tire burns. I wonder how his “face” is after a “lǎowài” put him on his ass?