Running the Wall

When long-distance runners talk about "hitting the wall", they mean reaching the moment when your body's stored energy reserves are exhausted and your legs just don't want to move any more. It is possible to find the strength and courage to keep going beyond this point, but it is very difficult: it is as though there is a solid barrier blocking your path, "a brick wall". Usually this point comes after you've been running for about 25-30km. This is why a Marathon race is so hard: it lasts just over 42km – you have to get beyond "the wall".

The race I took part in a year ago this week is even tougher: after 35km you hit The Wall – the Great Wall of China! The Great Wall Marathon is run each May in beautiful countryside to the north of Tianjin, and incorporates a section actually running along the Huangyaguan Great Wall. It's only a very short section, barely 2km, but it is very, very hilly, and includes thousands of steps. And you have to do it twice, once near the start of the race, and then again - in the opposite direction - just before the end: a cruel and unusual punishment indeed, and clear evidence of a sadistic bent in the race organisers. This is probably the most difficult regular-distance Marathon in the world.

In fact, the Wall section is not the worst of it. That's so steep that you really have to walk for most of it, rather than trying to run; and if you've done lots of stair-climbing in your training, it's actually not too bad. However, most of the rest of the course is hilly too. Extremely hilly. I had been misled about this by friends who'd run the event in previous years. They had all, I'm quite sure, assured me that apart from drainingly steep climb up the ridge to the beginning of the Wall section right at the start, it was all pretty much on the flat. Whether they said this out of mischief, malice, or mere forgetfulness, I cannot say. But that was dangerous MISINFORMATION (How I came to rue not having taken the time to read the course description the night before! It was rather too dauntingly detailed, ran to a number of pages - and I was just too darned tired to be bothered with it.). This course hardly has any flat stretches on it. And the first half of it is predominantly uphill. Even the best runners usually take a good hour or so longer to complete this monster than they would an ordinary marathon.

There is one continuous climb of nearly 10km – by far the longest hill I've ever attempted to run. Two-thirds of the way up, the race organisers had put out a sign that was meant to encourage us poor runners. It said: "If a hill has a name of its own, you can figure it's probably a pretty tough hill. This hill has no name." Most of us runners had plenty of suggestions for a name - but they don't bear repeating in polite company.

I was doing pretty well on this section, passing a lot of other runners (although, I confess, getting impatient for it to end); but then, near the top of the horrible, nameless hill, my left knee started to hurt – a lot. The injury was so painful that I was reduced to walking (or brief, agonising spells of shuffle-jogging, at best) for the second half of the race. That was hugely frustrating and disappointing for me, after all the hours of practice I'd put in over most of the preceding year to get ready for this event (damn, that was probably about the best shape I've ever been in in my life).

However, it was still a marvellous day out. The weather was gorgeous, as it usually is at this time of year: sunny, but not too hot. And the support from the local villagers and the volunteer helpers was fantastic. I'll definitely be back one day (next year?) to finish the course properly. To get the better of that hill. And to give it a name.