March 20th, 2016
When running the marathon in Guangzhou in 2015, I could recognize a few runners wearing a shirt with the words "QingYuan Marathon" written on it. And since QingYuan is only about 1.5 hours by car north of Guangzhou, it was obvious to put this marathon on the "to do list". The date, March 20th, was also suitable, as it meant I could use the time between January and March for the long runs when the temperatures were not yet too high.
I did a final short run of about 3km on Friday before the marathon and I could already feel what was waiting for me on the following Sunday. It had rained a lot in the weeks before and the humidity was very high. Unfortunately, the weather forecast for Sunday was not much better.
As the start was at 8 am on Sunday morning, we (4 other runners) drove to QingYuan on Saturday afternoon to pick up our starting documents (including a somewhat "unusually" designed running shirt).
On Sunday morning it was very cloudy but dry and my weather app showed 100% humidity. After a quick breakfast with cereals in the hotel room we went to the start. Unfortunately the colleague who was supposed to book the hotel near the start for us had mixed up the bridges on the map and the hotel we had booked (on the wrong bridge) was 4 km from the start. So we had to drive to the start by car, but luckily we found a parking space straight away.
The start was on time and after just a few kilometers I was drenched in sweat although the temperatures were relatively low, about 23 degrees. But the humidity was incredible high. The not particularly interesting course at least offered the opportunity to see the leading runners and so I was "even" able to see two other foreigners: They were the two leading dark-skinned runners. No other foreigners in sight ...
After 20 km the route continued along a bridge and I already felt like I was already running 40 km. The time was still in the "planned" range at 2 hours 02 minutes but I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep up the pace. And so it was and my final time was 5 hours 01 minutes, which was much slower than planned. It certainly wasn't due to the training but the high humidity was probably one of the reasons for this drop in speed in the second half.
A funny (for some not so funny...) story at the end:
In the bag which runners could pick up after crossing the finish line, there was a medal (personalized with name!) and a few other little things, as well as a small package on which berries were shown.
After a quick "smell test" it was clear it was soap. The English word "Soap" was also printed on the package and on the back there was also a sticker with text in Chinese. Nevertheless, some runners thought it was an energy bar... Here is the link to a related press report in English.
And here the link to the official website of the Qingyuan Marathon.
For some pictures pls. have a look at the German version of this post.