Marathon

This last Saturday morning was the 6th annual running of the Xiamen marathon. Normally they run this marathon in March, but it was moved up to use it as a final qualifying event for the Chinese into the Olympics.

We both discussed signing up to run in this, actually we discussed this with a bunch of other ex-pats when we first moved here, but we got busy. By the time we looked to sign up the 5K, 10K, and half marathon were already booked solid. As for the full marathon, I looked into it and although I hadn't trained and wouldn't have the time to decided that I could at least sign up and not worry about my time. When I went back in to sign up then, the full marathon was also fully booked.

So, we got to spend our day with both of us as spectators. The route ran right past our place, so from our standing point we got to see the runners at 17K, and then on the opposite side of the road just past the half way point at 24K.
The early runners all looked good, not breaking a sweat, and you could tell that this is their job.

The later runners looked like I presume I normally look while running, exhausted and looking to the crowd for support. That's where were really helped them, two laowai standing amidst the masses of Chinese stand out, and Tina's voice was easily heard among the other spectators who all only shouted "Jiyo" as encouragement.

We don't know what they we saying, apparently some sort of "Keep going", but we were cheering and actually shouting "Keep going", "you can do it", "looking good", you know standard things. Some of the foreigners running would look and smile or wave, but huge quantities of the Chinese would wave and say "Thank you" or "Hello", some would high-five, one stopped to take a picture of us.

It was fun to watch, even for me who has never really watched people running, and just knowing that we were able to help encourage some people, especially the half marathoners who you could tell were ready to quit, made it really enjoyable.