Magnus and I finished the Shanghai Half Marathon (21km) yesterday morning and we both feel such a triumph that we completed this race and did it in a respectable time of 2 hrs 11 minutes - not too bad for first time runners we think :-) Our day started early, we woke up around 5.30 AM and temperature outside was around 7 C. Once at the race, which started near Puxi's People Square, we did a little warm up and even got interviewed by local TV channels and before we knew it the shot gun fired off the start of 21,000 half and full marathon runners. After a few early hick ups; my Ipod was on repeat and it would have been unbearable to hear 50 Cents throughout a 21 km race so while running I finally managed to fix it and then I had to secure my race number sign onto my clothing, we were off to a good start. After 10 km I had to make a quick bathroom stop but other than that, we ran the whole race without stopping which was over my expectations for this race - I thought I had to stop around 16-17 km to do some walking - but we kept it up and ran the whole way.
Magnus was without a doubt the BEST coach ever during the race, encouraging me to not stop and keep going. He was clearly less tired than I was towards the end of the race and would have finished at a better time had he not promised me we would cross the finishing line together. And so we did, hand in hand, we stepped over the finishing line - and it felt soooooooo good to make it the whole way and get through this race in one piece!
Later the next day we found out we had been both been on TV and everyone recognized us on Max and Emmy's school. Even our driver's daughter had seen us on TV so now we're nown as the Marathon celeberties at school, haha :-)
What an amazing experience this has been!
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