Shi ting in a race

I ran my first race a few weekends back in Taipei!! Only a 6k, but a big step for me since I've never ran one before.

As you can see by the above picture, we got our names printed on the race shirts. Most girls put their English names on their shirts, but a few put the pinyin version (English letter pronunciation of Chinese characters) of their Chinese name. It made the race slightly better to run by a girl whose name on the back of her shirt read, "Shi ting". 

 About 10,000 people entered the race, so we had to run quite slow. It was crazy crowded, even toward the end. 


Of course, there HAD to be some ridiculous people who ran with us. Only women could enter the race, but one girl walked the race with her boyfriend. Oh, and the boyfriend held her mini-poodle while she walked in jeans. IN AN EFFING 6K RACE. You couldn't leave your dog home for a few hours?? A lot of Taiwanese are OBSESSED with their dogs. Yeah, we Americans love our dogs and bring them in the car on occasion, or camping, to the beach, etc, but we don't bring them when we run races. Or to restaurants, grocery stores, school performances, and other weird places as many Taiwanese do. And they rarely put their dogs on leases. Oh, but they put their CATS on leashes, as I saw once at a breakfast shop near my house. I have yet to leash-train Potato though, don't worry. Though, I guess I did buy my guinea pig, Mufasa, a leash that one time.

I admit, I definitely would have walked him around campus had he not laid on the floor in protest every time I attempted to "walk" him.