Good morning my friends but I’m pretty sure it’s Friday evening where most of you are.  I wanted to give a little update on our trip from Beijing.

First off, The Great Wall of China conquered us unfortunately. It was pretty brutal. The race was very challenging and very different from a road race. This was essentially a climbing challenge because I can honestly tell you we really only ran MAYBE a mile of the entire thing and we didn’t even make it all the way through. Officially, we made it 11 miles! Those were the hardest 11 miles of our life.

Last year 110 people entered the marathon only 20 people finished. This year 330 people entered the marathon and I’m pretty sure only 25 people finished! All in all, it was a great experience that left us challenged and rewarded at the same time! It was beautiful. Most importantly we wanted to enjoy our time here. We resigned to the fact we wouldn’t finish all 26 miles in the first 45 minutes of the race. It was just our time together to enjoy The Great Wall of China and take a walk through history. I’m pretty well aware some of you may not have kind words to say about us not finishing but I challenge you to come out to do what we did and you tell me how “easy” it is to finish.

But we still conquered the wall, just not the way we intended. I’ll blog more about the race later. I just wanted to give you an update.

Yesterday we went to the Temple of Confucius. This was a major highlight for me. When I found out we were going to China this is what I thought about. Yes, I thought about sitting in front of this statue and getting wiser by the moment just by being on the premises. It was a completely amazing experience. I got to share my knowledge of Confucius with Willie too! I think he may have been a little bit impressed.

Not sure what we’re doing today. I think we’re going to head out to Tiannamen Square and the Forbidden City! And of course, we’ve been eating some really great food but that’s another post in itself.