Bunjee Jumping!

Last Saturday, Caitlin and I went bungee jumping! ahhhhh! We went with our friends, Kate, Meg, Tom, and Tom's friend, Daniel. I kept vacillating between feeling sick and lightheaded to feeling excited about the free fall (30 meters). Then I think I mentally checked out for a bit until I started climbing the stairs higher and higher to the platform. It was beautiful up there, we were in the LongQingXia Gorges which are a couple hours from Beijing. The water was green and sparkling and it was a warm, sunny day. But when they started strapping my ankles I thought, "Oh no, there is just this Velcro strap around my ankles and that doesn't seem significant enough, may I please have a full body harness?! " Then they taped my shirt down and ushered me to the ledge. When I stood up, the chain connecting me to the platform clanked loudly as I waddled to the jumping point. I had asked them to please not push me, I wanted to jump myself. But as soon as I was in position, looking down, ALL THE WAY DOWN at the water, my brain just snapped into NO WAY mode. It just didn't seem right, I can't VOLUNTARILY step off this ledge and free fall towards the water without a parachute or a life jacket or a helmet or some sort of protective- something. I knew if I didn't ask him to push me, I couldn't do it, so I nervously yelped "TUI WO!" (push me) and he did--ever so gently--and down I plunged. Oh if only I could find the words for what the fall was like...of course, full-fledged panic comes to mind....also head rush, I felt like my head was going to explode, so much so that it hurt. But then there was the distraction of what I feared the most-- the jolt of springing back up, like I was being sucked up by a vortex. I got some good screams in before I decided I could wave to the people watching down below. And then the boat came with a man lifting a long stick up towards me to grab so they could pull me down and unharness me into a seat on the boat. It was rather hilarious because after we all compared notes, we realized they tell you to sit down when you are still hanging upside down with your feet up in the air. We all got a good laugh in about that....it was a fun way to tie up the adventure. Our friends took pictures which we will pass on soon for sure. I don't know if I would do it again, but I still want to try skydiving sometime! However, with The Great Wall 1/2 Marathon last weekend and the bungee jumping this weekend I am thinking the next few weekends might be good times to read and fold laundry--another kind of thrill for sure:)

Great Wall 1/2 Marathon

Well I think there is a reason The Great Wall Marathon is one of the world's five adventure marathons! They say to add about half of your marathon time onto this race, you have to fight your competitive instincts to run as fast as you can because there were many times we were lined up single file, waiting for our turn to descend using ropes or railings-- the terrain was so rocky and uneven both going up and going down. Many of us used our hands on the really steep parts, some of the steps were two feet steep, whew, talk about feeling the burn :) There were also some spots where there was actually no wall to the left so if you fell, you fell a LONG way down unless the bushes could stop you. One man tried to run up ahead and not use the railing, he fell down on his hands and knees and we all screamed but he was okay! It was a close one, if he had fallen another six inches to the left it would have been another story. Once we made it off the wall we ran down a goat path into the local villages and the support from the kids and the elderly was amazing. They would scream "Hi! Hello!" and give you high fives and scream JIA YOU! (add oil, the Chinese cheer). Some were sitting on their roofs and a few would jog along beside you to get their picture taken. Speaking of cheers, I even got some TNT cheers because I was wearing my TNT jersey, so that was great to get some Team In Training support on this side of the world. I finished in 2hrs 16 minutes, ninth woman overall, second American woman, and first in my age group (20-29 year-olds). That was such a nice bonus, Caitlin I were aiming for me to finish the race intact, so that was a great surprise!