Ella Kidron (left) in last year's BMW Hood to Coast relay in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Winner of competition promoting the capital gives US executive more reason to pound the streets as she relishes chance to meet city's residents, Li Yingxue reports.

The first day after moving to Beijing from New York, Ella Kidron shook off her jet lag with a run at 4 am in her new city home. That was in July 2016. She still clearly remembers seeing the sun coming up, almost shyly, over the city and its sweeping streets.

That started a passion for exploring the city through running. This was the way she wanted to see, feel and hear the city and it allowed her to meet new friends.

"For me, running in Beijing is about juxtaposition-it's enjoying the quiet in a bustling city and shuttling back and forth between history and modernity," she says.

Kidron, a senior manager of international corporate affairs at e-commence platform JD, put her running story into a video titled Discovering Beijing's Limitless Possibilities. That video, which runs just over two minutes, won her the top award for the "100 Reasons to Love Beijing" short video and essay competition.

"Running in Beijing means treasure hunts, mystery and surprise," she says in the video. "It's a reminder of the unlimited possibilities of this city. It makes this place, which is more than 6,000 miles away from where I grew up, feel like home."

Kidron at the ceremony.[Photo provided to China Daily]

In the video, she runs past an Hermes store in Beijing's CBD area, across a classical Chinese bridge and then down one of Beijing's traditional hutong alleys, as well as running with her colleagues.

The event, organized by the Information Office of Beijing Municipality and the Beijing People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, gathered around 900 videos and 400 articles created by over 1,000 foreigners from around 100 countries and regions.

"Running is not only a way of self-recognition but also teamwork. Competitive sport depends on teammates' support and encouragement, so does knowing about, and assimilating in, a new city," the 30-year-old said at the award ceremony, which took place at the Palace Museum on May 14. Kidron understands what it takes to succeed in sport, especially the discipline required and the narrow margin that separates glory from defeat. She was once an Olympic swimming trialist for the United States.

Another winner of the competition, Kelly Dawson, who's Kidron's colleague, likes to explore the alleyways, but on her scooter. Her video, Unexpected Beijing, is about her adventures in the hutong, her favorite aspect of Beijing, and it snagged her third prize in the competition.

Growing up in Hong Kong and studying and working in the US, Dawson moved to Beijing in 2014 and has witnessed the city's evolution.

Living in a hutong, Dawson feels at peace, protected from the hustle and bustle. She hears one neighbor practicing piano, or the baby of another. "There's definitely a feeling of being in a community that's quite charming," she says.

Dawson says she took the opportunity to make the video to express to people in her hometown what she enjoys about living in Beijing.

Their videos are filmed and edited by their Chinese colleagues. Kidron's video was taken in winter. She picked places she has been to that impressed her when running.

"Telling my story of Beijing is a way to express my gratitude to the city," she says, adding that, by making the video, she also wants to say thank you to her colleagues who have been so patient in helping her to learn more about the city.

She has colleagues from all over China who share with her tales about their hometowns, and she hopes that, in the future, she can visit them, as well.

Kelly Dawson (second from right) and Kidron at the "100 Reasons to Love Beijing" short video and essay competition award ceremony at the Palace Museum on May 14.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Finding her feet

Kidron started competitive swimming at the age of 14, which was considered late. She tried everything to make up the time, including watching online videos on all the great swimmers and breaking down their performance, stroke by stroke, late at night in her dorm room.

She was always curious about Beijing and China. In March 2008, she traveled to Beijing for the first time when the city was gearing up for the Olympics.

In 2010, Kidron made her second trip to Beijing. Taking on a communications internship, she spent the whole summer with a swimming team in Beijing in preparation for the 2012 US Olympic trials.

She trained in the morning and evening and went to work in the afternoon.

Her local teammates gave her a taste of the capital, sometimes literally, as they took her to restaurants and to meet their families for dinners at home.

"People were so welcoming and so open to just let me in and I felt like that we are all connected," she says. "It was the best summer of my life. When I got home, I felt like I left a piece of my heart in Beijing."

After failing to make the 2012 Olympic team, in June, she moved to New York from Los Angeles and swapped her swimming goggles for running shoes.

"I loved that I could run and see the New York skyline at the sunrise and sunset. It was a special way to explore the city," she says.

She and her mother climb the Great Wall in 2017.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Kidron was in New York, but images of Beijing kept flashing through her mind. In July 2016, when she got an opportunity to work in the Chinese capital, she jumped at the chance.

When she arrived, she went walking with no clear destination in mind until it was time to take the subway home.

Sometimes she might get lost and just ask people for directions. Now she has a mental map of Beijing, but there are still new places to see. "The Summer Palace is on my to-do list," she says.

When she runs in the hutong, she tends to pay attention to the architecture and the people. Sometimes she stops and talks to the locals, some of whom even recommend restaurants nearby. "There is no real destination; it's really about exploration, being open and learning something new."

Kidron runs several times a week, about 10 kilometers each time, usually early in the morning. Occasionally, she runs during the weekend with her friends or colleagues.

For her, running is not only a great way to meet people, but also a good way to organize her thoughts.

"Sometimes when I'm writing something, I'll go for a run and figure out the outline in my head. It's the same way when I was swimming," she says.

Even when she is not running, she does yoga and still swims, as she likes to keep moving.

Kidron's work is to tell the company's story and help people understand it better. She thinks that, as the company began in Beijing, part of its story is intertwined with that of Beijing, which encouraged her to learn more about the city and its development over the past five years.

She remembers when she first visited Beijing in 2008, she didn't even have a smartphone, but now she is comfortable conducting mobile payments.

"The city is developing so fast and, at the same time, there are things that haven't changed. In a place where so much is changing, it's also nice to see older parts being preserved," she says.

"It's exploring thousands of years of history on the one hand, but welcoming the opportunities that tomorrow brings on the other."

She notes that there are many parts of the city that she still hasn't explored. Living in Beijing for five years, Kidron thinks her journey in the city, and across the country, is just getting started.