Odessans to run the Great Wall
Apr. 30—United by a love of running and some might say craziness, friends Allan Espina, Adriana Ramirez, Michael Culley and Michael Blanchard are heading to China to run the Great Wall of China Marathon May 1.
Espina is education director at Odessa Regional Medical Center; Ramirez is a coach at Bonham Middle School; and Blanchard is data quality lead for BP.
Espina picked the Great Wall of China Marathon as a bucket list race. They all agreed to go for it. Blanchard said there is some question about getting into the country, but as long as you are in and out within 144 hours you're OK. Getting information about the tourist visas has been difficult, but Blanchard said the people that organized the race said as long as they fill out their paperwork and have their passports, they should be fine.
Espina said if they are confined to the airport, he will do the 26 miles and superimpose himself against the Great Wall.
He said they all have to be tested for COVID 72 hours before they arrive. They plan to stop in the Philippines first as that's where Espina's parents are, and will take their tests there. Ramirez plans to take hers in LA. None of the three have been to China before.
Ramirez plans to take a GoPro and run with it. Espina said they cannot bring drones.
"I think if we can just get one picture of the three of us on the Great Wall good enough to see the expanse of it, even if we only ran a region of it (we're) still good with that," Espina said.
Ramirez said she is excited, but a little nervous about the trip.
"I think just the experience alone is going to be pretty amazing. The views, I'm just ready to see what it's going to look like up there," she said.
Blanchard said he has traveled internationally, but never to that region of the world.
"Like Allan said, kind of a bucket list item. I'm trying to collect bucket list races," Blanchard said.
He said he started trying to run in 2018, having quit smoking the year before.
"I thought I might as well take advantage of my newfound lung capacity and started triathalon. My love is for triathlon, but the marathon is kind of a byproduct thanks to him (meaning Espina)," Blanchard said.
He has done the Escape From Alcatraz race twice where you swim from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco.
"This is my next bucket list race. I don't know what's next after this," Blanchard said.
Ramirez said she has always been a runner. She was a cross country competitor in high school and college, but she has done marathons the past couple of years, but she is not an Ironman.
Ramirez said she has been talking to her students about the Great Wall marathon since she signed up.
"Their love for running has just grown. They don't want me to go because they're going to miss me. ... They're asking me about local 5K's and they want me to sign up and run with them, so it's pretty neat to see," Ramirez said.
"I told them that if they did well on the STAAR test and they worked hard every day that I would bring them something back, so they're pretty excited," Ramirez said.
Espina said they are going to start together and finish together, even if it takes 10 hours.
He added that pictures of the Great Wall race have been exciting to look at, but also scary because there are images where they "literally crawl and be on all fours."
But, Espina said, it will be a fun experience.
"It'll be something we talk to our nursing home friends (about) when we're older saying hey there was a point in our lives where we ran the Great Wall of China Marathon," Espina said.
Ramirez noted that you don't hear of people from Odessa running in China.
"This is also a vacation. We plan on doing some beach time in the island of Palau after, so we feel we'll deserve that vacation after," Espina said.
They will be staying at Espina's parents' home in the Philippines and after a few days of rest they'll go sightseeing.
"That will include the four day, three night expedition that we're going to do in the island of Palau. It goes from one island to another island ... We will be roughing it because we will be sleeping in tents and there will be no access to, I think, electricity on some of the islands, so bare essentials, mosquitoes, but it will be fun," Espina said.
Espina and Blanchard also recently took part in the Boston Marathon. It was the 10th anniversary of the bombing.
"For the last few years, they have what they call One Boston Day where they had very varied sectors of the city would do one act of kindness. ... There was even an area in the Boston athletes' fan fest where you grab a little ribbon and you put it on a certain wall and say, today we'll do an extra act of kindness. I've seen all the other versions of what what they did for One Boston Day, like the Boston Children's Hospital donated blood on behalf of Boston Children's patients by giving pints for half pints as an act of kindness during One Boston week. And one credit union hosted a children's book drive so that they could donate it to the library. It's a very varied community support to commemorate that the city and the runners are very resilient despite the tragedy that happened in 2013," Espina said.
He added that there were several memorials. They also had a moment of silence where all sectors of the military stood and some runners put flowers on a memorial. Daffodils have also been planted alongside the marathon route since the bombing.
