I am registered for both. Great Wall Marathon is very much cheaper to run if you have a Chinese residence permit. I am simply looking for others training for any of those races to share experiences with. Training in China do put other levels of problems on you. The heat is gone but we still have the pollution, lack of good trails (at least in Shanghai) etc.

I have been forced into running the wall marathon in Xi'an in two weeks time. Not looking forward to it.

What'ts not looking forward with that? It is a rather nice run (for being held in China). I had to skip it this year since i hoped to do the Hangzhou marathon. Now it turned out that they have put a cap on that this year so I did not get any entrance ticket... Well. I try them next year instead. Very reluctant to Beijing marathon though due to simply too much pollution.

I would have to agree with @MandarinBoy! Even though I am a few kgs over my fighting weight, I would love to run in the Xi'an marathon. Something to work towards for next year I guess!

Yeah, but if you don't enjoy running, having to participate in a distance race sounds pretty torturous!

I had no idea you could participate in the Great Wall Marathon on a residence permit and forgo all the tour fees, etc. great tip!

@rmzhao82 If you apply now and only go for the race and the inspection tour(not mandatory but really good to do) the total cost is 1730 RMB. That compared to the full package from e.g. Sweden that is more like 15.000 RMB, flights excluded.

It's that expensive?
My university insists we participate but atleast it's free.
Think about something you have no interest in doing and don't like doing, then imagine being made to do it. I didn't realise disliking something was such a hard concept to understand.