LSD: Long, Slow, Distance run
It's been a while since I posted anything here, and I just wrote a great entry elsewhere about my run this morning, that I thought worth sharing. Just like my run, I intended to just write a little bit, and it kept getting longer and longer...
this morning I went out for a short run. I decided I would just do 5k because the weekend was thoroughly exhausting and I was feeling well and truly spent. My left leg was stiff and I was limping a little, so I wanted to take it easy. I put on both of my knee braces, stretched carefully, and went out. Somewhere along the line, I realized I was already 4k out on the creek path I like to follow, much too far for "just 5k." And I was feeling adventurous, so I decided that, rather than turn where I usually do on the path I was on (it hits the western edge of the Third Ring Road, so I either turn north and run along the Ring Road until I hit the river and make a 12k-15k loop, or I turn back and follow the creek back to the other side around the lake in the middle of my district, which makes a wiggly 8k loop), I would just keep going forward and see what's on the other side of the Ring Road.
The first thing I discovered is that the creek ends at the Ring Road. Which didn't surprise me, because the creek is artificially filled anyway (I know this because the water stagnated all summer, and whoever's in charge of it drained it at the start of September). There is an interchange for the Ring Road's viaduct right in front of the creek, so there's not even a path to the other side. Weaving around the on-ramps, I found my way to the other side and, since I couldn't go straight because of a massive pile of excavation dirt blocking anything immediately west of the creek, I turned south and ran until I found a road that goes into one of the hutongs outside the Ring Road. This was actually a very cool decision. A hutong is made up of mostly low, older buildings that are all brick and concrete. If you spend any amount of time in China, you'll see them everywhere - especially rural villages. They look extremely poor and dilapidated, are serviced by unswept concrete or dirt roads, and many even appear abandoned, complete with broken windows and permanently ajar doors (though if you know what to look for, you can see that they are not).
My first impulse was to be repulsed by the apparent poverty. But as I pushed through, I saw that most of the residents sitting on their front stoops, cleaning the alleys, or working on small projects near the front door, were either neutral or smiling - a refreshing change from all of the scowling han on the buses. They were especially surprised to see a foreigner coming through. I would smile and call, 早上好 (top 'o the morning) or 早安 (morning peace) to people, who would then grin big, toothless grins, laugh and converse with anyone nearby about the funny-looking laowai who knew good morning greetings. I had no idea how far this hutong would go, nor if I would find my way back as the road wound back and for
th a bit between the buildings. Just as I was deciding whether I should turn and start working on a loop or heading south to another main road and finding my way back, I broke out of the buildings and came into some greenhouses, with the road capped by the path to an expressway heading out to the Fourth Ring Road. That made my decision for me.
This expressway is pretty much the edge of the built up, metropolitan areas of Harbin (there are between 5 and 8 million residents in the built up area, which takes up about a third of the space of the entire prefecture, which has 10 million residents). It doesn't run on a viaduct like the Third Ring, but is constructed on top of a tall berm to protect from flooding. This afforded me an incredible view of the estuary west of town and I could see the various tall communities north of the river. As I looked around, the thought entered my head that, even having moved to another continent, my world remains so small! I could see the Third Ring Road bridge behind me and another bridge ahead of me, and more communities of skyscrapers fading into the distance. It's a beautiful, sunny day today, though humid and a low smog, but the sky is blue and that was encouraging. I found myself dodging hundreds of lady-bugs throughout the run, and had to shake off several hitchhikers at various times. But it was a wonderful run.
At ten kilometers, I crossed the road and started back towards Qunli. The entrance to the hutong was easy to pick out, because it has a large metal gate and there were vegetable sellers who had picked their produce from the gardens below the berm, dragged them up to the interchange, and made enticing piles to gather attention. If I were not running and were carrying my wallet, I might have stopped and picked up some things. They looked delicious! Alas. I was very pleased to note that the path through the hutong was also easy to rediscover. I was smart enough to look backwards at the places where I hit intersections, so that I would recognize them and remember where and which way to turn, and wove my way back through. It was getting close enough to noon that a lot more people were out, so I gave more greetings to the new folks, and smiled and waved at the ones I had seen before, getting a lot more cheerful greetings. One car passing by even slowed down to interview me... "Hi there! Are you American? Where are you going? How many kilometers have you run?" He was having trouble matching my pace, and there was a bus coming, so I answered this last question with a big grin (he was quite surprised - I was at 15k by that point), so I said goodbye and moved forward so he could get out of the buse's way.
Once I was back inside the Third Ring and on familiar turf, I had broken through the wall, so instead of heading straight back home I curved around the crossroads of two creeks (further proof of their artificial design: creeks don't make crossed intersections) and added a couple clicks, so that I would hit twenty-two kilometers before I got back to the front door. Sure enough, with a bit of a loop inside my neighborhood, I managed to put on 22.3 kilometers, and I still felt like I could keep going for a while longer, if it weren't for the fact that I neglected to put anti-chafing gel on my chest (even a the soft, slick fabric of a technical running shirt will rub the skin off your nipples after 15 kilometers, but I was only going out for five at the start, so I didn't expect to need it) and wanted to stop before I began to bleed. Besides, the longest I've run in China so far has been 15k, and with the extra two klicks, I had just completed a half-marathon worth of distance... in one hour, forty-eight minutes, and twelve seconds. Yes! I cut ten minutes off my official race time for the Spokane Half in 2016. Woo! And that, while I was trying to hold back! My first kilometer was too fast, so I slowed down and was working on a slow jog rather than a speed run, but I was holding my average pace at 4:57, which is five seconds faster than I've been running when I push for the last couple months. If I keep this up, I'll be well on my way to the Harbin Marathon next August!
this morning I went out for a short run. I decided I would just do 5k because the weekend was thoroughly exhausting and I was feeling well and truly spent. My left leg was stiff and I was limping a little, so I wanted to take it easy. I put on both of my knee braces, stretched carefully, and went out. Somewhere along the line, I realized I was already 4k out on the creek path I like to follow, much too far for "just 5k." And I was feeling adventurous, so I decided that, rather than turn where I usually do on the path I was on (it hits the western edge of the Third Ring Road, so I either turn north and run along the Ring Road until I hit the river and make a 12k-15k loop, or I turn back and follow the creek back to the other side around the lake in the middle of my district, which makes a wiggly 8k loop), I would just keep going forward and see what's on the other side of the Ring Road.
The first thing I discovered is that the creek ends at the Ring Road. Which didn't surprise me, because the creek is artificially filled anyway (I know this because the water stagnated all summer, and whoever's in charge of it drained it at the start of September). There is an interchange for the Ring Road's viaduct right in front of the creek, so there's not even a path to the other side. Weaving around the on-ramps, I found my way to the other side and, since I couldn't go straight because of a massive pile of excavation dirt blocking anything immediately west of the creek, I turned south and ran until I found a road that goes into one of the hutongs outside the Ring Road. This was actually a very cool decision. A hutong is made up of mostly low, older buildings that are all brick and concrete. If you spend any amount of time in China, you'll see them everywhere - especially rural villages. They look extremely poor and dilapidated, are serviced by unswept concrete or dirt roads, and many even appear abandoned, complete with broken windows and permanently ajar doors (though if you know what to look for, you can see that they are not).
My first impulse was to be repulsed by the apparent poverty. But as I pushed through, I saw that most of the residents sitting on their front stoops, cleaning the alleys, or working on small projects near the front door, were either neutral or smiling - a refreshing change from all of the scowling han on the buses. They were especially surprised to see a foreigner coming through. I would smile and call, 早上好 (top 'o the morning) or 早安 (morning peace) to people, who would then grin big, toothless grins, laugh and converse with anyone nearby about the funny-looking laowai who knew good morning greetings. I had no idea how far this hutong would go, nor if I would find my way back as the road wound back and for
th a bit between the buildings. Just as I was deciding whether I should turn and start working on a loop or heading south to another main road and finding my way back, I broke out of the buildings and came into some greenhouses, with the road capped by the path to an expressway heading out to the Fourth Ring Road. That made my decision for me.
This expressway is pretty much the edge of the built up, metropolitan areas of Harbin (there are between 5 and 8 million residents in the built up area, which takes up about a third of the space of the entire prefecture, which has 10 million residents). It doesn't run on a viaduct like the Third Ring, but is constructed on top of a tall berm to protect from flooding. This afforded me an incredible view of the estuary west of town and I could see the various tall communities north of the river. As I looked around, the thought entered my head that, even having moved to another continent, my world remains so small! I could see the Third Ring Road bridge behind me and another bridge ahead of me, and more communities of skyscrapers fading into the distance. It's a beautiful, sunny day today, though humid and a low smog, but the sky is blue and that was encouraging. I found myself dodging hundreds of lady-bugs throughout the run, and had to shake off several hitchhikers at various times. But it was a wonderful run.
At ten kilometers, I crossed the road and started back towards Qunli. The entrance to the hutong was easy to pick out, because it has a large metal gate and there were vegetable sellers who had picked their produce from the gardens below the berm, dragged them up to the interchange, and made enticing piles to gather attention. If I were not running and were carrying my wallet, I might have stopped and picked up some things. They looked delicious! Alas. I was very pleased to note that the path through the hutong was also easy to rediscover. I was smart enough to look backwards at the places where I hit intersections, so that I would recognize them and remember where and which way to turn, and wove my way back through. It was getting close enough to noon that a lot more people were out, so I gave more greetings to the new folks, and smiled and waved at the ones I had seen before, getting a lot more cheerful greetings. One car passing by even slowed down to interview me... "Hi there! Are you American? Where are you going? How many kilometers have you run?" He was having trouble matching my pace, and there was a bus coming, so I answered this last question with a big grin (he was quite surprised - I was at 15k by that point), so I said goodbye and moved forward so he could get out of the buse's way.
Once I was back inside the Third Ring and on familiar turf, I had broken through the wall, so instead of heading straight back home I curved around the crossroads of two creeks (further proof of their artificial design: creeks don't make crossed intersections) and added a couple clicks, so that I would hit twenty-two kilometers before I got back to the front door. Sure enough, with a bit of a loop inside my neighborhood, I managed to put on 22.3 kilometers, and I still felt like I could keep going for a while longer, if it weren't for the fact that I neglected to put anti-chafing gel on my chest (even a the soft, slick fabric of a technical running shirt will rub the skin off your nipples after 15 kilometers, but I was only going out for five at the start, so I didn't expect to need it) and wanted to stop before I began to bleed. Besides, the longest I've run in China so far has been 15k, and with the extra two klicks, I had just completed a half-marathon worth of distance... in one hour, forty-eight minutes, and twelve seconds. Yes! I cut ten minutes off my official race time for the Spokane Half in 2016. Woo! And that, while I was trying to hold back! My first kilometer was too fast, so I slowed down and was working on a slow jog rather than a speed run, but I was holding my average pace at 4:57, which is five seconds faster than I've been running when I push for the last couple months. If I keep this up, I'll be well on my way to the Harbin Marathon next August!