Having decided to turn the September Dark Horse challenge into a tour,
This week, courtesy of Lo Stroke Rate of Ro Wing Adventure Tours we are continuing on our journey starting at Badaling and heading back towards the Forbidden City.
We set off bright and early from The Great Wall at Badaling
A short 1000m later and we are at the Great Wall Museum of China.
Another 1000m and we pay a visit to the Badaling Wildlife World where it seems the wildlife is actively encouraged to attack your tour coach (only a few casualties in recent years).
After which it is a fairly long 17,000m schlep to the Baiyanggou Natural Scenic Spot.
where we have another dip to cool off a bit, before our final leg of the day takes us to the Thousand Mu Rose Garden.
This is where we will spend the next day or so before starting the middle section of this journey.
Map for Day 4:
I completed the 1/2 marathon in 1:39:57.7 and did a cool down of 2244m in 11:14.0. Yet more episodes of Battlestar Galactica were watched before stretching, showering and then over to watching the Queen’s funeral on the BBC.
The guys at the boat club also took a picture of the Gloriana after it had loaded up with its 18 oarsmen.
Tuesday I had a rest day and did not really do any exercise, although I did still do a few pull ups and chin ups as my son was also challenging me to do timed L sits and hangs.
For comparison, the picture on the left is the best I could manage for a pull up back on June 24th of this year, compared with a full pull up from today – I did actually get my chin over the bar, but my son missed that part!
The evening archery session was cancelled due to an open evening at the academy, so we decided to have a social meet up at the cricket club instead.
Wednesday morning was the middle section of our push back to the Forbidden City from Badaling which is the second leg of our triple Great Wall destination journey with Ro Wing Adventure Tours.
We start today from the Thousand Mu Rose Garden where we have been resting up for the last few days.
Our first stop after 5,500m is the Buddhist Dajue Temple ‘Great Awakening Temple or Temple of Enlightenment’ originally built in 1068 during the Liao Dynasty when it was known as Quingshui or the ‘Clear Water Temple’ and was rebuilt in 1428 during the Ming Dynasty when it was given its current name.
Our next stop is some 10,000m further on and is at the Beijing Botanical Garden which cultivates over 6,000 species of plant.
Our final stop for today is the Summer Palace, a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens and palaces which form an Imperial garden dating from the Qing Dynasty.
Map for Day 5:
I completed todays’s 1/2 marathon in 1:39:58.4 and did a cool down of 2242m in 11:53.7. For some reason, the pace was down a little today, although it seems the stroke rate was metronomic, I had to pick the pressure up a little towards the end to hit the target time.
Thursday morning will see us retrun to the Forbidden City in Beijing on our journey from Badaling.
We start the day where we stopped off yesterday at the Summer Palace.
Just 1,110m later, and technically still part of the Summer Palace we reach Kuoruting and the 17 arch bridge.
8000m later we reach the Beijing Zoo where we catch up with the giant pandas.
Finally we reach the Forbidden City at nightfall.
Many thanks to Lo Stro Krate once again for planning the route.
Next week we will be heading off on the third leg with Ro Wing Adventure Tours to Huangchuacheng (65,000m).
Map for Day 6:
Map for the Badaling leg of the tour:
I completed todays’s 1/2 marathon in 1:40:09.2 and did a cool down of 2249m in 12:34.3. I didn’t quite come in under the 1:40:00 today, I had to go to the bathroom shortly after starting and never really reclaimed the time, despite a valiant effort at the end with the last 2,000m in 8:06 that included 3:53 for the last 1,000m and 1:49 for the last 500m.
You know it is not happening when you are still 2-3 strokes out and the clock ticks over the 1:40:00 mark, but you keep going for it anyway.
Distance covered on the Badaling leg of the tour was 70,026m.
Distance total for the challenge at the end of day 6 now stands at 138,893m.
Friday was supposed to be 2,000m for the September SkiErg Performance Series, but I really didn’t feel like it so I had a rest day.
Saturday morning masters rowing I was in a fine 2x for the first time, in the steering position – the boat was definitely much more ‘tippy’ on the dock and did not want to sit flat, but out on the water seemed fine and no additional hassle. We covered 9,254m during the session.
Saturday afternoon leisure rowing I was in a leisure 2x, steering again, all good practice, we covered 6,518m. I then helped with the learn to row group by coxing the leisure 4x that they were using.
I managed to tear some skin off the little finger of my left hand, I was obviously gripping the oar too tightly and needed to tape it up for the Sunday session.
Sunday morning masters rowing was in an 8+, I was in the number 4 seat on stroke side. We had a couple of less experienced rowers in the boat which led to a session that some found a little frustrating as there were a lot of drills for pairs or fours, although by the end the cox/coach did manage to have us all rowing in sync. This ended up being quite a long session during which we covered around 13,800m.
The skin tear was not an issue for the sweep rowing in the 8+ as I just hang that finger over the end of the oar anyway.
Sunday afternoon leisure rowing I was in a leisure 2x, steering yet again, on our journey back to the boat house we were doing a power pyramid and I pulled the tape off my finger during the ‘power 20’ after which it was a little tender being somewhat raw skin directly on the sticky oar handle.