St. Patrick's Day the CQ way

I hope everyone had an enjoyable St. Patrick’s Day back home. Mine was a good blend of the old and the new; a refreshing change of pace, as much of my life here has been. Speaking of pace, let’s get to the start of the festivities.

Saturday was the annual marathon held in Chongqing. Though I haven’t developed into enough of a masochist to sign up for the marathon, I did participate in the 9km race. There were four races that day: a full marathon, half marathon, 9km, and 5km. Each started from outside the Sheraton (those gaudy golden towers that I posted a picture of long ago), and was run along the Yangtze River. Prior to the race I was standing around with a few expat friends, and though normally the Chinese refrain from taking pictures of the foreigners (or at least do so discretely), on a special occasion like this, the cameras were out in full force. Though I regretfully did not bring my own camera to take pictures, I know for a fact that there are at least a few dozen pictures of me floating out there in the ether of the web. Another pre-race highlight was watching some of the running gear clad Chinese men stretching with a smoke hanging out the side of their mouth. Their dedication is unimpeachable. Back to the race.

The marathon runners started first, then respectively down the line. The starting positions for the different lengths were lined up at intervals of about .5km behind the elite (read: mainly east African) marathon runners. I have written about the general sense of chaos that fills public spaces and roads here, and this was acutely amplified when you threw in thousands (hard to ball park a guess, but there was a serious sea of people there that day) of runners of varying skills, motivations, and goals. The proverbial shit-storm ensued.

I have been running at the gym since I arrived here, and this was to be my first real race since the elementary school track meets. I wanted to do well. So my initial frustration with the mob of walkers, photo-posers, and people of greatly differing age groups (sorry, a sanctioned stampede is no place to take your child for a stroll along the river), was quickly avoided as I followed some of the more ambitious runners up onto the sidewalk to get ahead of the meanderers on the main road. Once the road opened up, I was back on track and feeling pretty good.

The run itself went smoothly enough, though sucking in good, old, unfiltered Chongqing air probably isn’t the best way to execute a long distance run. Another slight obstacle was the curious runners who wanted to have a little get-to-know-you chat during the race. I’m pretty friendly when it comes to entertaining people who want to strike up a conversation with a foreigner, but come on lads, there’s a time and a place for this sort of thing. Again, I was moving along at a good clip, and there was no one around me with the 9km number on them. This is where things went awry.

When I got to the 8km mark, I decided to go hard the last 1km. I was pretty tired because I was giving this my all, and so when the 9km marker past and there was no finish area like I had seen at the 5km marker, I thought to myself, “Well maybe they’re marking the beginning of the kilometers, not the end.” (This logic flying in the face of what I had seen at the 5km spot, but I wasn’t at the top of my thinking game at this point.) When the 10km mark past, I was a little concerned, then I hit the turnaround point for the half marathon, and knew I had blown it. After some woefully unsuccessful interaction with a few race officials at the turnaround, a nice young lady came over and gave me a hand with the communication. Apparently, I had missed the turn off for the 9km finish. Shite.

After walking the 2km back to the 9km finish line (no more running, I had run flat out for 11km already), I saw all the lollygaggers that I had left behind at the starting line. I sincerely believe that had I not blown where I should have turned off for the 9km finish that I would have been right at the top of the 9km finishers. I’m not too disappointed because I felt that I ran very well, which was my goal, but damn, it would have been nice to finish at the top. But that day, there was no time to wallow in what-ifs; I had an ancestral tradition in which I was obligated by blood to partake.

Showered and changed from this:

Into this:

Headed down to the Harp, had a few cheeky pints and some laughs, and that was St. Patrick’s Day.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I picked up the Star Wars trilogy this weekend, and The Empire Strikes Back is calling. Enjoy the week.