The Sick Sports Illustrated Sprint

Last Saturday, Caitlin and I competed in an athletic competition on behalf of her magazine, Sports Illustrated China .Leading up to this event, whenever I saw one of her colleagues, they would cheer my Chinese name accompanied by a round of enthusiastic fist pumps. My reaction in my head was always, "ohhh dear. we have some elevated expectations at hand here!" My nerves were further compounded for as Cay says, the last week plus I've been "sick as a dog." I have this dreadful cough where I actually spit stuff up and have difficulty breathing, sore throat, runny nose and my abs actually are sore from the coughing. I actually had a "spit cup" I was using before my first race, and it was challenging to accomplish successful breathing just sitting on the sidelines.....but hey, breathing schmeathing.

Now, just to provide a bit of context, this is an athletic event where twelve magazines are competing against each other. To kick off the festivities, they actually have a parade, just like in the beginning of the Olympics when all the countries march in, waving to the crowd. They also had all these pigeons boxed up (I felt so bad for the pigeons) and then they had their big release to commence the kick off of the competition. Caitlin and I were like, oh no, this is on a larger scale than we were anticipating...they are not messing around here!

Caitlin was up first. The shot put. Never had she seen or thrown one before. But I had no doubt she would win. And she did! In addition to the lovely gold medal, there were fun prizes to our delight and surprise. Caitlin won a set of nice sheets...extra exciting since one sheet can run you 100 kuai here, so we were pretty pumped.

Then it was my turn to run the 800m. tissues in my short pockets, spit cup in one hand and cough drops in my other, I lumbered to the track. "Are you actually going to run with your cough drops?" asked concerned sibling. That's right, I did, because my throat felt like it was locked up and there was no clearance for the airways. I did, however, part with my Spit cup. Then a bevy of race monitors, timers, and assorted officials descended upon me since I wasn't exactly sure what was going on because:
a. i was a little bit out of sorts
b. never have competed in a track competition before
c. can't read Chinese so much which can be problematic when you are trying to follow a schedule that tells you what time you are supposed to run. (I heard it was inaccurate anyway)

thankfully Caitlin's super nice office manager saved me and got me where i needed to be just in time.

I had a good, solid start but so did everyone else. We were all together for a bit before a few of us broke away. Then I was out in front for a bit before getting passed. I think there was about 250 meters left when I passed the lead runner and powered through to the end. It was so funny because at the finish line a sea of photographers swarmed around me, and all these flashes were going off and men with notepads kept asking my name. I thought for sure my lungs were on fire. But the fans were great. A few of them yelled out "You are so strong!" and " I love you" in English. Cay and I were the only foreigners in attendance and she said she kept hearing people say, "wow, look at the foreigner! that foreigner can run, that foreigner is fast!"

Then Cay rocked her 400m--she came in fourth and I was so proud, strong to the end. She shaved off 14 seconds from her best training time, coming in at 1:26. (They didn't have my time yet when we went to check) Equally exciting is her prize, an egg cooker/boiler...and it's a cat. It was so funny, we were dumbfounded, wondering what is this cat for? Then Caitlin's colleague explained it to us and we were like Ohhhhhhhhhh. It's so random that it's wonderful. Go China.

Finally came our 400m 4 person relay. The order was one fellow, then Cay, then another fellow, then me. By the time Cay got the baton, we were behind by quite a bit. She managed to close some of the distance but we were still trailing significantly. then the third fellow went and we had fallen even more behind. We were the last by far and thought the race was pretty much done at the point he gave me the baton. Cay said later she and her colleagues were saying "its too bad, she doesn't even have a chance to catch the last runner because even the last runner is already half way done." And to be honest, I think I thought that too for a second. but then I figured, hey, here I am on the track, I might as well run the race as if it's within reach. So I went for it.

Since everyone was so far ahead I was basically running by myself for what seemed like a while . But then to my surprise, a clump of four runners started getting closer and closer until I realized I might just actually be able to catch up. At this point, the crowd was going crazy. The people in the stands were screaming and stomping and chanting, "JIA YOU, JIA YOU, JIA YOU! (pronoun ed yo) which literally translates to "Add oil!" which is a Chinese cheer. So I kept trying to find me some oil! The people on the sidelines were screaming and yelling and I heard Cay above them going ballistic. "YOU CAN PASS THEM, GOOOOOOOO!" So I passed the first four but then there was still one more person up ahead, really close to the finish line. I am not sure how but I managed to cacth up and JUST pass her at the finish line. It was so close I wasn't sure who had finished first but once all these people started hugging me and giving me thumbs up and high fives (I didn't know any of them) I heard the good news.

All this excitement made me wish I competed in track when I was younger. I bet these competitions are even more fun when you don't have a sinus and lung infection. Cay says she's always had infinite respect for me but that after that race she can never look at me the same. I'm just excited to actually have competed (everything inside my body was like no way, buster). but in the end, we have some new supportive pals, a few gold medals, a set of sheets, a cat egg cooker, a tent (which I initially thought was a yoga mat the way it was packed) and an actual family barbecue set! nothing quite like a random collection of fun prizes.

After it was all over, we went to the train station to pick up two of Caitlin's friends from Amherst that have also moved to Beijing. Now we usually get stared at but we were quite the spectacle now! I was still wearing my shorts and that would probably be enough to make people stare since they think it's cold now. But I was also carrying Caitlin's Cat Egg Cooker, my tent, and my family barbecue set around the train station. I walked by this one fellow and I heard him mutter under his breath, "foreigners, foreigners..." But then Caitlin heard some one say, "Look at those two girls, they are athletes." Whoo hoo!

Yeah, I am officially on a gym vacation now.

P.S.
I have also officially been diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection. Caitlin calls me Darth Vader, I agree, the way I breathe DOES sounds just like him, watch out James Earl Jones! Her friend also says it sounds like I am coughing up hairballs. I can see it now, the next Star Wars movie: Darth Vader Has Hairballs.