shanghai marathon
on saturday morning i had to make a presentation in the office, so i woke up very early (for me) and headed out of my hotel at around 7:45am. i had no idea that saturday was the day of the 2004 shanghai international marathon with the course running right past my hotel.
so i walked outside to see an enormous amount of people running by with a group of yellow-suited cheerleaders lined up in front of the hotel, crashing cymbals together and waving red tassles.
it didn't strike me as a marathon at first as the runners were of all ages, running in groups of similarly dressed people. teenagers with backpacks looking like they were late for school, older folks holding large banners, men in their pajamas, men running holding camcorders, and every imagineable type of person was running past. it looked like a parade, except very very fast.
i took a few mpeg movies of the scene and when i was reviewing them earlier this evening i noticed a toddler running amongst the crowd. you can see her jogging (just as fast as everyone else) with her dad in this clip (3451kb).
with so many different types of people participating it looked like a lot of fun. i felt like joining in- with my dress shirt and laptop bag i would have made a nice addition to the ecclectic mix of folks running through the streets.
posted by jeremy @ 12:03 AM
4 Comments:
Nice VGA video! Is that the original compression? One of my coworkers is training for the NYC Marathon and she's never run in a long race before. Crazy...
hi adam, yes that's the original compression. pretty cool, eh?
i've never been a good runner- can't run more than a lap or so on a track without stopping.
I used to run in a few mini-marathons before, and the first impresion I got was the feel of the masses of the people reclaiming the streets from the cars, which is a powerful feeling considering on a normal working day, those cars are driving so dangerously I feel that they might eventually maul someone crossing along the zebra crossing lane!
But thinking about it, cheerleaders? Darn, that is a interesting sight ;)
I used to live next to the NYC marathon route (also an eclectic mix, but never saw a toddler!) and it is quite a cool feeling - for us non-runners - to head out after the masses have passed, and just play around in the wide open and totally empty streets. I wonder how long it took the streets to fill back up in Shanghai??
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