On day 54 of the 95 day run around the world we crossed the border from Mongolia into China, it was a smooth crossing and within an a couple of hours we were at our hotel in a part of China still known at Inner Mongolia.

China is one of the world’s most fascinating countries and has the largest population on earth at 1.3 billion, it also has a 5000-year- old culture and land area of 9,600,000sq miles. China, whose name means Middle Kingdom, is bounded to the north by mountains and the Gobi Desert, to the west by the Himalayas, and to the east by an 18,000km coastline extending south along the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea.

Arriving in China was like being back home to me, the people, the culture, the food, the smells, the colors- oh it felt so good, even the people spitting freely in the street didn’t bother me as I understand that is just the Chinese way. I lived in Hong Kong from the age of 7 to 11 years and loved every minute of my time growing up there and so anything Chinese I associate with fond memories. It therefore seemed appropriate that I was the first of the Blue Planet Runners to run on Chinese soil at 3am. After my team finished our shift at 9am we made our way to our hotel in our new van with our new tour guide called Toni and our driver Mr Yu who would be with us for our 4 days in China. I grabbed a few hours sleep and then decided to have a look around a small city located just down the road from our hotel, the area known as Inner Mongolia but is still in China.

My first stop was to buy some more hair ties, pink and blue of course, so I wandered into this shop which had a staff of about 3 and by the time I left the shop 10 more people had ventured in to see this girl who spoke with a funny accent and had blue eyes instead of brown eyes. They seemed absolutely fascinated in a nice sort of way and actually made me feel like a bit of a Rock Star in that small city in Inner Mongolia. I know two of our other team members experienced this sort of fascination in Russia. Richard who is an African American and Emmanuel who is from Kenya were like superstars in Russia and Siberia, the Russians were stopping them for photos all the time and fascinated with their look. One even asked Richard if he came from the Mountains! Classic.

My eyes were still a little infected from my time in Russia and Mongolia so I went to find some soothing eye crème, as I walked up and down the isles looking for my eye crème I was approached by two Policemen. They pulled out their ID and wanted to know ‘ why I was in the area’, ‘what was i doing’ and that I must leave immediately because no foreigners were meant to be in the area! YEAH RIGHT I thought. They wanted me to get into their police car, but I refused and casually made my own way back to the hotel - this kiwi girl wasn’t about to be pushed around by nobody, not even Chinese policemen!

I had one of my hardest runs towards Beijing, unfortunately ¾ of the team had come down with stomach bugs, and I reckon we have all passed it on to each other through the Baton we have had to carry around the world. I was the last runner that morning running from 7.30am-9am, we had started our shift at 3am and I had spent nearly all of that time sleeping awkwardly in the back of the van on top of all our bags tying to regain some energy I had lost because of all the spewing I had be doing the previous day. I woke up to find I was in the middle of Friday morning market in China and it was absolute chaos with motorbikes, bicycles, donkeys, fruit and fish sellers. I felt right at home and it was just like I was that little girl back in Hong Kong walking the markets with my mum. It did lift my spirits and give me the energy to run the first 5miles, but boy did I struggle over the last 5miles and I have got to say it was probably one of the hardest runs I have had to do in my life. I felt like I had ‘hit the wall’ just like I had done in the London Marathon. But it was the support I got from the Chinese people that carried me through. I waved my baton at them and they gave me friendly waves back, they offered me rides on their motorbikes and the warm smiles I got from them carried me through to the end of my 10miles.

Beijing was a lot more modern than I expected, its hard to believe this city has 12million people. We had a day and night in Beijing and a lot of the team decided to visit the Great Wall, one of the greatest engineering feats of the ancient world, the Great Wall was begun in 221 BC by Qin Emperor, Shi Huangdi, to protect China’s northern frontier and it runs for 6,350km. I did see part of the wall as we drove into Beijing but after being ill for a couple of days I was a bit too run-down to make the hours visit to walk the wall. I decided that I will get the chance to visit it when hopefully I get to Beijing next year to see the Olympics. Instead I went to the Theatre which is my other passion in life. I saw the ‘LEGEND OF KUNGFU’ at the Red Theatre. What a wonderful show it was, the music, Kungfu scenes and beautiful story line about a little monk who arrives at the temple and is initiated into the monastery and given the name the Chun Yi ( the pure one). The little monk is studying Zen and Kungfu very hard and after many years of training his body turns to iron and he is a man. However Chun Yi chances the beautiful fairy he has created in his mind, and hence cannot continue with his Buddhist practices. The Monk Chun Yi loses his way of Buddhist practices, and suffers great remorse, but passing through the temple gate is a glorious ritual for a monk, and Chun Yi accomplishes his final task to become a Monk Warrior.

It was a lovely way to end my time in China and the next day early in the morning we were on the plane to Japan. It was great to get to Japan, I love the country and culture and over the years have visited Japan more than 9 times for Cross country, marathon and road races. Taeko, my teammate who is from Tokyo had a lot of media work to do while there, so it was a busy time for her, she was also introducing her new fiancée Jason Loutitt, the Canadian athlete she has become engaged to while on this Blue Planet Run to her parents! They plan to marry before we end this 95 day run around the world- Yep this Blue Planet Run has certainly been a life changing experience for her! In Japan we were all able to have our own rooms for the very first time on this trip and it was a luxury as you could do what you wanted, when you wanted. I was able to catch up on some well needed sleep as I had only been surviving on 3-4 hours sleep and re-organize all my clothes and bags and get them into some order for our final run across America.