After a long and gruesome flight, I am now in Shanghai. First impression? A slum on steroid. High-rises and Skyscrapers are going up everywhere, butting up against old two to three stories houses and housing compounds. Streets don’t follow a grid system, or even a pattern for that matter. The airport is about an hour away, connected through a network of highways. As we get closer to the city, we see massive new constructions underway. One development I saw was like a few stadium-sized space-framed spaceships landed randomly on the plain field. To be fair, all we did yesterday was just landing in Shanghai and drove to the airport. Perhaps my first impression will change after all. I look forward to getting out of the city today and see some organic old villages and towns in Suzhou. Oh, by the way, connecting to facebook and twitter is next to impossible (perhaps illegal as well). It took some maneuvering to even be on tumblr.
(If you haven't read Part 1, it's here .) (Sat) Oct 13 - Sunrise at Spruce Knob 6 a.m. start in the dark. My legs surprised me by being happier than yesterday. My heart is in better place as well. The first 6.7 mile goes up to Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia. Part of this section was on fire road and I welcomed the faster miles. Steady progress was made in the first 20 miles or so until the long, long descent into Aid Station 3. As I have decided yesterday, I'd start the race, go from aid station to aid station, and re-evaluate my condition at each. I left Aid station 2 feeling good but then the long descent once again put doubts in my mind. Running reduced to little steps on jello-legs. Compression socks helped to contain the injury and pain, but the strength to support the pounding was still lacking. Soon, my knees started to hurt as well. At aid station 3, they told me I had 2:45 to make it to the next aid station before the cut-off. At the pace I...
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