Early this spring, my home church started a program known as "Outflow". It is based on the idea of finding ways to share your faith with your family, friends, and community. I am by nature a rather introverted person, so such activities are extremely difficult for me. However, the kinds of things the church used, like providing bottles of
water with a verse and invitation for us to give to others, made it much easier. As I thought about how I could show my faith, I started to think about my upcoming trip to China. This May, I was scheduled to teach at a university in Shanghai for a period of 6 weeks. This would be my 3rd trip to China. While there, I do most of my training on the track on campus. Each morning, I would jog to the track and do my workout. In the early morning, prior to 6:30, I share the track with mature adults doing their morning exercises. But at 6:30, the students start filling the track to meet their physical
education requirement. During this time there could be as many as 2,000 students at various times walking their mandatory 2 laps around the track.
At this point, I had an idea. Why not find some Christian-Themed running gear. Who knew, maybe a student would stop me to ask what it meant. No matter how introverted I am, I thought I could do that. That is how I found Christian Runners. I received the singlet and my first opportunity to wear it was at Boston in April. In the start coral and during the race, at least 6 runners made comments about the organization. My second opportunity to wear it was at the Great Wall Marathon in May.
At 3:00 AM the morning of the race, all the runners piled into buses in Beijing to take the 3 hour ride to the start. A total of 1,700 runners either running a full marathon, half marathon, 10K, or 5K arrived between 6:00 and 6:30 AM and were greeted by exactly one bathroom. After words of welcome from the local dignitaries and a moment of silence the earthquake victims from Sichuan Province, the first wave left just after 7:30 AM. The race starts by leaving a fort along the wall and taking a 5K ascent on a paved road. This brings you to the entrance to the Great Wall. The next 3.5K are a serious of steps, rocky slopes, and dirt paths. The steps ranged from a foot wide and less than 3 inches high, to less then 6 inches wide and 2.5 feet tall. The good news is that more of them are going down than going up. This phase of the run ends by going back through the fort. The next part of the race is a combination of paved, dirt, and rock streets and paths. This 25K takes the runners through a series of extremely remote villages. As the race director indicated, for most of the villagers this is the only time they will see someone from a foreign country. In each village, the children lined the streets waving, clapping, and shouting "Hello!" (obviously the only English word they know). As you run by, they hold out their hands in the hopes you will give them a high-five. This phase ended back at the fort and you start back up the wall, going in the opposite direction then the first time. The next 3.5K were by far the most difficult. It was difficult to enjoy the scenery because each time you looked up all you really saw were the mountain of stairs you still had to climb. Each of the 3,700 stairs on the wall became a personal victory. Finally, the final stair was in sight and the runners enjoyed the final 5K going back down the road and finishing in the fort. Four hours and forty-nine minutes after the start gun was fired, I crossed the finish line and a race official hung a medal around my neck. I have no idea if the verse on the back of my singlet effected anyone running that day, but I know it effected me.
To have the finisher's medal fall directly over the Christian Runners logo on my chest, was my way a giving Christ the recognition He deserved on that day for the life he has given me. While it is me in the picture, I hope all will see that it is Christ being honored.
Shalom,
Greg
PS - To put things into perspective the organizers suggest
that the target time to finish the Great Wall Marathon
should be your typical marathon time plus 50%.
(reach out to Greg via email (Click Here)
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