Bret

PM - up early and off to the airport to travel from Shanghai to Beijing required me to delay my run until we arrived at our hotel in the afternoon.  A good bit colder (in the 20's) and extremely poor air quality conditions - literally like fog - the sun only looked like a white disk in the sky. The index showed 181 on the twitter app - which is "unhealthy" - meaning people with allergic sensitivities should avoid being outside ete.  But when we were running it was clearly much worse.  I checked the index about 30 mins after we ran and it was 481 - which is listed as "dangerous" - "the entire populations is likely to be affected." 

In any event - undeterred by the cold and air polution we ran from our hotel through an upscale shopping square and down the main drag in front of Tian'anmen Square.  Huge number of people out side walking, and on bikes and other conveyances - with a number of them smiling and kind of looking at us in bewilderment.  In fact when we got to the Square - Richie was taking a photo of me - in my running clothes - (long sleeved shirt - bright red top shirt and shorts) and a woman came up to me in a heavy Eskimo-looking coat and asked if her husband could take a picture of us together - I guess either to document the contrast in clothing or just how out of place I appeared.  Indeed - others with cameras began taking photos of us too - which got a bit comical.

It was a fun little run.  Richie was clearly having difficulty with the pollution and frankly by the time I got cleaned up in my room - I felt a little ill from it too.  I may stay indoors tomorrow if it is this bad.