Shanghai China - Runners Paradise For A Street Run

(Click on picture to enlarge view)

I have in the past been to Shanghai China but have dedicated my visits more in playing golf rather than in running. However, when our company retreat and team building was scheduled for Shanghai China from 25-29th March 2010, I have promised myself to dedicate my early morning hours to running along the streets of Shanghai.

Weeks before the scheduled trip come through, I knew that the temperature will be between 5-8 degrees centigrade and will in itself a task to overcome. I therefore prepared and packed by cold running gears. I then visited the "Map Your Run" website to check on the possible routes to take considering the hotel we have booked ourselves during the stay.

On 26Mar10 the day after we arrived Shanghai, I woke up early at 5:00am. I immediately dressed up with my cold weather running gears, hydration belt and Gamin 310xt all set to make my initial run. At 5:42am I was off and running. For the first 5 minutes of the run it was like having a cold shock as the temperature then was at 2 degrees centigrade, God it was cold and it was penetrating not only my running apparel but all the way to my bones. I had then my apprehensions if I could continue with the run. Ten minutes into the run, I was beginning to feel the warming muscles and beginning to enjoy the scenery. It was then that I saw a number of runners also doing their early morning runs and the further I go the more I noticed that running in the streets on Shanghai is not an odd thing to do but is the usual thing to do. On other places abroad that I have done my usual morning run, I have to dedicate my running along the curbside and pedestrian alleys, however, in Shanghai it was a runners paradise as you can run safely using the BICYCLE LANE along the road. Although it is still street running, the pollution level is very low and clean, check on the pictures taken during the runs.

I have the following summary of figures for the three days I did my early morning runs in Shanghai;



I have used two different routes with one done twice and they appear on the Google Map as follows;




Shanghai is indeed a Runner's Paradise for a Street Run - Safe, Clean, and street friendly which surprisingly is still possible for a city of 22 million inhabitants. WIth the World Expo due to open on May 1, 2010 there will be a lot of visitors coming to Shanghai and I am sure there will be quite a number of runners of these visitors. The City of Shanghai has bigger package awaiting visitors who will try to run the streets of Shanghai. By then the weather condition will be a lot pleasant.