Nanjing 南京 Xuan Wu lake 玄武湖 Running Route

A weekend (31-8-2008) run in Nanjing 南京, lucky me! My family in law lives in Nanjing 南京1,5 km from Xuan Wu lake 玄武湖 this is a great place to run it meanly flat you'll pass Nanjing railway station 南京火车站 on 1/4rd with one smal clime at 3/4rd if you run clockwise and start at Xuan Wu Gate 玄武门 that is in the center on the left with a almost horizontal road leading to the islands in the middle of the lake. I prefere to run it clockwise but if you run counter clockwise there are stones at the side of the road with distance markers on it.

I ran quit late 9:45 am and because of the rain on saturday it was perfect weather for running and to my surprise there were quite some other runners. After the climb I saw a orange shirt and light hair in front of me running clockwise as well.  Yes it was an other Dutch; Armin who works at Basf Nanjing 巴斯夫 南京, drove his bike up to the lake from his house in the south of Nanjing for his weekend run. We ran back to the Xuan Wu Gate 玄武门 where he finished his workout by biking home and myself by speeding up again for the last 1.5 Km.

Over the last few years Nanjing 南京 has done a great job in rebuilding green area's especially along its city walls (the longest in China) it has become a great place to run these day's. Next to flat road you can also go up the mountains. See on the map in the right botom corner. As we will be there during the Moon festival 中秋节 you will find a post about the trail running in two weeks. Below is a picture of the road around the lake 20 meters after you turn left at Xuan Wu Men 玄武门