Well, nearly. The real 500 days were on Tuesday 27 March. But that Sunday we had the “Samsung Cup 2007 Beijing International Long-distance Running Festival” to celebrate the 500 days countdown. Start: at Tiananmen, about 10,000 participants for the 5K and 10K runs. Arrival at the Millennium Monument (West Beijing). Route: Chang’An Avenue.
Officially it was also “10 K”. But our own calculation gave 8.1 Km, I finished with a time of 45 min, not that bad keeping in mind I was trying to recover from a bad cold (OK, turned out to be a bad bronchitis…), that makes about 10.8 Km/h. Sun was not exactly happy I was running and tried to talk me out of it. Flemish people being rather stubborn, to no avail.
The weather was quite nice and pollution was below the usual horrible levels.
It’s all very much for the media, lots of shows that nobody can see, except on TV. Looks nice. All choreographed for the public image.
Even the dragon dancers were in the Olympic mood: they made the 5 Olympic Rings.

the drums are calling for the start; there we go on Chang’An Avenue