Seemed like a good idea....

The title of this update makes it obvious that something happened that well, at the time sounded fun, exciting, a great opportunity to get involved......but as often happens, the day came and we were greeted with a HUGE sense of, "I really cant be bothered". The activity you ask.......well a fun run, yep a FUN run. Not sure there is a such a thing but mentally unstable people insist on calling them fun. Actually it was the Shanghai Marathon, which is apparently quite a big one globally. So the background is that Nielsen sponsored any employees (and partners) who wanted to get involved. Basically they would pay the entrance fee, each participant would receive a Nielsen Shirt, sweat bands, tattoos, wigs etc..etc. The company also had heaps of flags made, big and small which people managed to run with, the cheer squad also had these flags to keep us motivated as we ran. The events were a 4.5Km Health Run, 22km half marathon and the full marathon for the idiots. Alyce and I signed up for the health run because we are all about health. So anyway, the day came, as usual these things are on a Sunday morning.

Alyce and I got ready and ran to the station because it was so cold. We got on the train at 7am, with allot of other runners and headed to my office where we were meeting the Nielsen people. We had about 100-200 people participating I think.

We all made the short walk into the city for the start of the race. It was absolute chaos as thousands of people crammed into narrow streets for the start. Apparently starting the race in a nice open area was not given the thumbs up. Before I go on I must mention a hilarious fact, the entry fee for a Chinese person was about 20RMB and the entry fee for a Westerner was 150RMB.....what a bizarre thing to do.....charge westerners more to do the same thing. Can you imagine if that happened in Australia......sorry Mr Wang, that pie is $25 for you.

Anyway, the company paid so who cares. So we were off and running and I must say it was an amazing event. The whole way down the 4.5km course there was music, dancers, tai chi ladies in their outfits waving and banging drums. It really only could happen in China, the people are so passionate about their city and even though it was so early there were 1000,s of people cheering us on which made it fun. For reference, the white wig you see in the photos is actually my real hair, it has gone white from the stress of working in China.

So to the results, I am proud to say that Alyce and I both completed the run in between 20-25 minutes, I could not see the time when I finished and I don't think Alyce saw it when she finished either. Reflecting back it was definitely something worthwhile doing, next year I may be tempted to try the half marathon......or maybe we will just sleep in!