Mother and daughter challenge Great Wall

It happens all the time. People from the mainland move to Saipan and fall in love with the island life. Whether leaving the hustle and bustle of the city, the chill of winter weather, or the doldrums of life in a small town, the change of surroundings has an effect on people when they come to the Marianas.

For some, the laid back pace of the Pacific brings long-sought serenity. For others, it brings new life and energy—as was the case for Peggy Owen and Laura Hogan.

Hailing from Idaho, mother and daughter made the transition from Boise to balmy to start their new lives in the Commonwealth.

Not long after arriving on Saipan, Owen and Hogan first heard about the Great Wall China Marathon in November of 2003 and decided that they were interested in participating in the race. Christie Gregg gave them the contact information for Kathy Loper, a travel agent in the mainland who specializes in making arrangements for athletic events around the world.

After making contact with Loper, the duo made the commitment to the race by paying for the trip almost a year and six months ago. All they had to do from there was train for the 26.2-mile journey that would take them through towns in China and across the Great Wall.

“It has always been a dream of mine to walk on the Great Wall since I was three years old,” said 16-year-old Laura. Thirteen years later she would get her chance, but the journey was not exactly the way she expected it to be.

Laura had participated in the 15th Annual Tagaman Triathlon in April, 2004 as a part of a relay team, in which she handled the run, but had never entered a marathon.

On the other hand, Peggy had completed a marathon for the first time in her life roughly a year before they started training in August, and she combined her experience with a marathon training book to prepare for the momentous event.

“We started training for the event in August at three miles a day and worked our way up 18 miles using a book designed to take us through four months of training to finish a four-hour marathon,” said Owen.

The pair spent countless hours running up and down the beach pathway and on the Oleai oval—receiving plenty of pointers from a number of people along the way.

“We got a lot of help from the same people we saw every night when we ran, specifically two Korean guys named Lee and Chang,” said Owen.

The months dwindled into weeks, and the weeks whittled into days, as the jet-setting runners boarded a plane bound for the land of Confucius on a mission to journey on the only man-made object visible from space.

Two days before the race, Peggy and Laura took advantage of a pre-race run through the wall, where Laura fulfilled one of her lifelong dreams.

“I was so excited that I was ready to start running right then. We spent two and a half hours on the Wall, and I must have taken over 300 pictures. It’s amazing. I kept wondering how they were able to get all of those bricks up there,” she said.

Peggy had a different thought altogether.

“She was excited, but I was wondering what the heck I had gotten myself into,” said Owen.

After a good night’s sleep, the mother and daughter prepared for an early morning wake-up for the race.
With gel packs, pain killers, and moleskin “on hand” in their fanny packs, Peggy and Laura wiped the sand from their eyes at 1am on race day, laced up their Asics GT 2080 running shoes, and saddled up for a three-hour bus ride to the starting line at the Great Wall Fort.

Once there, they joined the field of approximately 900 runners and anxiously waited for the 7:30am start of the race. When the gun sounded, the mass of marathoners took off together, but soon into the race the swift separated from the stoic, and Peggy and Laura jockeyed for position with each other.

“We were together for the first five kilometers along the wall, and we passed each other along the way, but Laura took off with a group of faster runners and I warned her to be careful and not to go too fast too soon,” said Peggy.

While there was a difference in the time it took the pair to complete the race, their tales from the journey were almost identical.

“It was all uphill in the beginning, and there were a lot of stairs on the wall. It was so steep, and when I was running up the stairs I got into a rhythm until I got to a spot where it was uneven,” said Laura.

According to the local runners, while some of the steps were very close together, others were separated by almost two feet in height. Adding to the difficulty of the lack of consistency in the stairs was the angle of the ascent.

“It was almost straight up on the way out and straight down on the way back. You can’t really run that part because it’s just too steep,” said Peggy.

While the lure of the Wall was enough to entice them to China, Peggy and Laura were thankful for the sections of the marathon that went through the local villages.

“Kids along the way were giving us high-five’s and saying ‘Nihao’ through the streets. It was really great,” said Peggy.

While Peggy and Laura were having a great time along the course, Peggy was in a bit of a bind, as she had to hit the 20 mile marker in the square by 1:30pm, and it was 11:30am when she was 13 miles in.

“It was all uphill for the first two miles, but I did the best I could. After that I started bookin’ the whole five miles down hill to the square.”

She made it by 30 minutes, and was able to finish the race, but both she and daughter Laura lamented the hike that returned them to the Wall section.

“It was the hardest part of the race. To get back onto The Wall we had to go onto a rocky dirt trail and climb more than a hundred steps until we got on top of it,” said Laura.

Once up there, fatigue began to take its toll on the race’s youngest runner, as Laura explained that she was fading fast.

“The last mile is always the worst because you’re so close, and the last half mile I had no food and no water, so I was hurting,” said Hogan.

Laura recovered when she could see the end, and finished strong with a time of 7:35, and she was joined at the finish line in The Great Wall Fort by her mother 35 minutes later.

As an added bonus, Laura took first place in her age group as no other high schooler dared to take the great challenge.

Owen said that they both really enjoyed the race, and that she will never forget the experience.

“We met so many wonderful people and had such a great time—it gets you psyched to do it again. Most people think I am crazy to be doing this at my age. The Chinese women all told me it would not happen for a Chinese woman my age to do this, but I think once you stop you might as well be dead, right?” said Owen

The next step for the mother-daughter team is already planned out, as the duo has penciled in the Gold Coast Marathon to their schedule for July 2006 in Australia, and the Maui Marathon in December 2006—and Laura is even planning to run a marathon on each continent.

While people don’t just magically transform into super athletes, the change of surroundings from the mainland to an island inspires some to test their physical and mental limits. It happens all the time.