Donga Seoul International Marathon: Part 1

Part 1: Before the Race

It all started on the 11th of December last fall. By it all, I actually just mean that was when I registered for the Donga Seoul International Marathon. I was in the Axcelis office in Cheongju killing time between teleconferences by scanning www.MarathonGuide.com to see if I could find a race in Mexico while Sarah and I would be there around the New Year.

To make a short story only slightly longer: I couldn't. Or at least not one near Tulum where we were staying. This was probably a good thing. I was in no shape to run a marathon at the end of 2014 and the trip to Mexico was better for not killing myself in a race. I did find a race in Seoul scheduled for March 15th and figured that there is a 50/50 chance of me being in Korea on any given weekend so I signed up. It was only 50,000 Won (roughly $50). You can't beat the race prices over here!

How out of shape was I at the end of 2014? I ran a grand total of 1093.74 miles; this was the second fewest miles I ran in any year since I started my running log in December 2009. I completed 8 races last year. I had two wins and two second place finishes but did not register a PR so the placement was more a function of attendance than performance. I did not break 60 miles in either November or December...not 60 miles in a week in either month: I ran fewer than 60 total miles in each of those two months!

Finally on December 28th I went out for a run and started a 42 day, 302.43 mile running streak. The streak started in Malden and survived flying down to Mexico for vacation and exploring all over the area around Tulum.

Pyramid at Coba. Rent bikes if you visit Coba; the place is massive.

It was only 31.92 miles, but I ran all 6 days in Mexico before coming home and running 106.86 miles over then next 15  days before flying to Korea. That 15 days included getting up at 2:45am on 1/20 to run a quick 4 miles before going to Logan for my flight to Seoul. In Korea I kind of hit my stride and ran 151.44 miles in the next 18 days before flying home on February 7th. Along the way, I topped my previous highest January mileage of 204.81 miles with 224.88 miles.

The flight home on the 7th was not a pleasant one. As Sarah and I skyped in the morning, I got 7 email updates alternating my flight from being delayed to 8pm to departing as scheduled at 6pm. After going out for sushi with Mark near the Shilla Stay we took the shuttle to the airport early enough to make the original departure. By the time we got to the airport, United had finally made up their collective mind and decided to delay the flight to 8pm which meant that we would miss our connection in San Francisco.

18 days is a LONG time to be away and I was really missing Sarah (as usual when I'm in Korea) so despite the fact that they only had middle seats left in regular economy, I switched onto a Singapore Air flight that would put me into SFO on time to make my connection home. In general, I would compare Singapore Air favorably to United but there was not an empty seat anywhere on the flight and I'm not really used to being cramped into regular economy seats anymore. Between the cramp and the crowd, I ended up sick when I got home. Perhaps I would have missed some days because of the snow if I was healthy but I didn't get out of bed for two days so I cannot blame the snow for the three days I missed upon getting home.

No one in Boston needs me to tell them how much snow we had in February this year.

 On February 22nd I ran the Five College Realtors 10 Miler out in Amherst. It was my 3rd try at that race and it did not go well. I ran 1:04:15. It was quite a bit off of my 1:00:30 out there back in 2013 but it was good to get out at race pace for a little bit. I ran well for the first half and I thought it was going to be a repeat of my strong performance two years ago but GI issues slowed the second half to a jog.

Photo from Facebook. Taken by Thomas Cole of SRR. Despite the snow, I was probably over-dressed for this one.

On February 25th I got back on another flight back to Korea. This time my route was Boston to San Francisco, San Francisco to Beijing and Beijing to Seoul. My flight out of San Francisco was delayed so I missed my connection in Beijing. This causes a bit of a stir because I found a connection to Seoul that went out later that night but it was on Korean Air which flew out of another terminal. Normally this would be no problem but my China visa expired last November and I didn't have any papers to show that I had a connecting flight in the next 72 hours to go through the temporary transfer visa line.

Fortunately, the kind folks at United were able to print out some papers that got me through the temporary visa line rather than going all "No Ticket" on me. I made it through no worse for wear but it cost me half a page of stamps in my passport so I'm going to need to add a pack of extra pages before Sarah and I go to France in September for the Marathon du Medoc.

With work, sickness, snow and missed connections, my mileage was down in February. I logged only 161.34 miles in February but at least this was more than I'd ever run in a previous February (previous high was 152.66 miles in 2010).

This trip to Korea was back to Cheongju which is one of my favorite places to run. Here are a few pictures I took one day when I took my phone out on my run to capture some of the scenery.

My run starts with a stone path by a small brook near the Ramada Plaza in Cheongju.

After about 1.5 miles on the stone path, I cross a low concrete bridge and come to a rubber track that goes farther than I've explored in both directions.

Here is the track heading off to the east on my morning run.

And here it goes to the west that same morning.

I've gone 7 miles out to the west and 3.5 miles out to the east and never found any sign of the end. There is a 144km marker on the bike path next to the track a few miles out to the west of where I pick up the track. This was also where my cell battery went flat so I don't have any more pictures from this loop. When I'm feeling adventurous I run up into the hills east of the hotel:

Run to the hills. Run for your lives.

With all the great running routes around Cheongju, I've logged 129.53 miles in the 14 days that I've been here. I'm exhausted from the miles and the hours at work but I have 498.79 miles on my legs this year and I have Sunday off to run the Donga Seoul International Marathon. I am training through it to make a run at sub-3 at Boston this year so my goal will be to finish somewhere between 3:00:00 and 3:10:00. Basically, I'm going to warm up easy for the first few kilometers and then run at marathon pace through around the 40th kilometer then cool down for the last 2km.

I'll update again about the race on Sunday and then about recovery to get ready for Boston in the middle of next week.

Cheers from Cheongju!