Seoul Marathon Part 2: Check Your Time, Boy…

…check your time. Those words are not mine. Those words belong to a band that Sarah introduced me to years ago called Westbound Train. Those may not be my words but had I heeded their advice at the Seoul International Marathon perhaps I would not have taken such a painful route to the finish line.

I did not realize it when I signed up for the race but it is an IAAF Gold race. This year it featured an elite team that included 24 men with sub 2:09:00 marathon PRs and 19 major marathon victories. The fastest PR of the 6 men coming in with a sub 2:06:00 performance belonged to Berhanu Shiferaw Tolcha who had run 2:04:48 to take second place in Dubai in 2013. The woman’s competition was no less fierce; it was headlined by Fireiwot Dado Tufa who lays claim to a win at the New York City Marathon and a 2:23:15 PR.

That’s the long way of saying that this was not the kind of race where I would be racing for any kind of placement. This one was all about getting in a big workout before Boston and getting a little redemption after disappointments racing in The Netherlands (DNF: Rotterdam 2009) and Italy (3:48:32: Napoli 2012). My seeding time had placed me in Corral A so this gave me access to the 2:50 pacer, the 3:00 pacer and the 3:10 pacer. My plan had not involved a pacer; a day or two before the race I plotted out each kilometer of the course and set a goal time, fast time and slow time and come up with a plan to run ~3:02.

That goal of running a PR as a workout in the Boston build-up was a bit of a stretch. During training I had built around a plan to run around 3:10 in Seoul and 3:00 in Boston. About 200m after the start line I found myself running just a little behind and to the left of the 3:00 pacer so I threw out my race strategy and decided to forget about my splits and let the pacer do the work. I figured that as long as I stayed behind him but kept him in sight that everything would work out OK. I only get a few short days on this earth so I figured that if we’re going to pin numbers on our chests I might as well race.

The first kilometer passed before I even noticed it but for the next 9km it felt like I was working hard just to keep the balloon pinned to the pacer’s back bobbing in the distance. Around the 15km mark the pace started to feel easier and within a few kilometers I was running stride for stride with the pacer. I chalked that up to finally finding my stride. At 20km the pacer dropped out of the race and we were left to our own devices. Not long later I went through the half marathon mark with about 1:38 showing on the clock; I had not noted how far behind the gun I crossed the start. Not far past the timing mat I recalled my watch and saw that I was about ninety-minutes in.

At 28km I knew that my race was over. I had just run half a mile more than the longest run in my training and it was suddenly death-march time. Just past the 30km mark I stopped to eat a banana and a cookie and drink some Pocari Sweat before continuing with a mixture of running and walking until 35km when I hit the bridge over the Han River. The ascent up the bridge was tough and shuffling across the wide river was a grind but on the backside of the bridge we caught the downhill and I was able to finally get my leaden legs to move again. It was a slow jog from there to the Olympic Stadium; every kilometer marker that I past felt like both an accomplishment and a painful reminder of just how many damn kilometers there are in a marathon. Finishing on the Olympic track was a boost but it was too little and too late to salvage a good time.

After the race, I got my splits and they confirmed that I had gone out a bit too quickly and that I had paid most of the price for that in the 30-40km leg of the race (I could have told you that without looking at my splits). It looks from my splits that the 5-10km stretch was what cost me. My goal pace was 4:18min/km even though I had trained to run 4:30min/km pace. Converting to miles this means that on race day I arbitrarily decided to try to run 19 seconds/mile faster than I had trained for and in the second 5k I had run 12 seconds/mile faster than the goal that I had not trained for. Running 31sec/mile faster than you trained for is definitely dangerous territory.

Sarah says this isn't a picture.

I have only a passing interest in these splits so I cannot blame you for your complete disinterest. I suspect that you clicked on this story in hopes of either learning something useful about the Seoul Marathon or perhaps to find a picture of something awkward that I saw while in Korea. Sadly, you’re left with me to tell the story so brace for nothing useful. Unfortunately I also have no awkward pictures from this trip so I’ll just share some oldies that I like from trips to Suwon and Cheongju in 2014:

They had a meeting in Suwon in February 2014

To decide if the Ramada hotel toilets needed lights in the bowl. Yes. Yes they do.

While I’m riding the juvenile humor train, let me share the menu from a restaurant that I stopped into in Palma de Mallorca back in February 2014 with Sarah, Sarah and Harold. We splurged and paid the 4.5 Euro. It was left to me to order and I very nearly made the order without giggling:

My real story about the marathon starts not long after my last post left off. I completed my job in Cheongju and traveled to Dongtan after work on Friday. I got up on Saturday morning for a teleconference and then for a shake-out run; I ran the 5.87 mile loop through the park across the street from the Shilla Stay and out along the brick path that connects up with the river track for the return trip to the city. It was warm, clear and felt as though a weight had been lifted with the completion of the work in Cheongju so I coasted along easily at around a 7:20 pace.

After my shake-out I showered, grabbed a quick lunch at the Rolling Pin (a coffee shop attached to the hotel lobby) and then packed for the trip up to Seoul. Originally, I had thought to catch a bus and try to navigate the Seoul subway system to the office building where the number pick-up was located but with a 6pm closing time I decided to forgo the adventure in favor of the guarantee that I would get to run the race. I had the concierge call a taxi and program the GPS.

Dongtan is only about 36km from the heart of Seoul but on a Saturday afternoon (or on any day for that matter) that 22.5 mile drive will take you over an hour. Unlike many marathons like Boston, Rotterdam and even Napoli (and actually every other marathon that I’ve ever run), there is no race expo for Seoul. The number pick-up is on the third floor of a nondescript office building a few subway stops south of the palace at the top of the Gwanghwamun Square. You just go up the elevator, give them your number (assuming that you’re a running nerd and looked it up ahead of time), show them your passport and they give you your race packet. I took my packet and went for the hour and a half walk north through Gwanghwamun Square to familiarize myself with the race start location and then to my hotel near Anguk Station. Finding the hotel turned out to be a bit of a challenge because it was a traditional-style Korean guesthouse tucked away on an alley. Here is the google-maps picture that I relied on to find the place.

When I got to the guesthouse I took a few quick pictures to share what I meant by “traditional-style Korean guesthouse”. In summary, the room was small enough that I needed to lay the inch-thick futon mattress diagonally so as not to hit either my head or my feet on the walls. I had to remove my shoes in the courtyard at the center of the complex before entering my minuscule room.

This was the photo provided in the confirmation email. Not being able to read the address markers on the buildings in the Anguk neighborhood I resorted to matching up doors with this picture to find the guesthouse.

What you see here is a picture of the step and sliding door to my room taken from the open air courtyard at the heart of the guesthouse.

That's the lock on my room. The padlock holds a nail in place that pins the two sliding doors together. From the inside of the room you have another pin to lock the doors, Just remember not to leave the latch open on the outside or some jerk can come by and pin you in your room!

This is how wide the room is. It is a square.

Here's my bed and the pile or race swag.

The guesthouse was both quaint and cozy and the floor of the room was warmed so the futon was surprisingly comfortable. Though the room was warm, the knowledge that I needed to cross the outdoor courtyard to get to the toilet/shower I concluded that the BO that I was going to bring with me by not showering in the morning would pale in comparison to how I would smell once the race started. A shower could wait until after the race when the day had warmed a bit. A short side note: there were no shower stalls or tubs at this hotel. There was a shower head next to the sink in the bathroom and a drain in the center of the floor and hand towels with which to dry off.

I settled into my room and cracked open my race packet with great anticipation. I have to confess to some ambivalence to what I found. On the one hand I was disappointed with the decided lack of any real souvenir to commemorate my fourth race on foreign soil. On the other hand I could not help but laugh at how this was just so close to being a normal race packet except for a few key details.

The packet included my number, a bag for baggage check at the start, a program about the event (entirely in Korean of course), the race shirt and a small tube of Sensodine toothpaste. I’m not sure what Sensodine had to do with the marathon but I had run out of toothpaste that morning and had been planning to go out and buy a new tube in Seoul so at least I was saved that task. That was it for the packet. I’m not sure what else I was expecting.

Actually, the biggest difference from what I was expecting was the race shirt. That one I know is far different from what I’ve found at any other race. Here are pictures of both sides of the race shirt from the IAAF Gold Label Donga Seoul International Marathon:

Here's the front

and the back.

That was what the race packet was missing! Any sort of branding from the race. I appreciate that they gave me a nice new winter running top for signing up for the marathon but it was decidedly odd to receive a shirt from a race that did not advertise for that race in any way. I’m more used to shirts from races going in the other direction, sometimes to the extreme. This was where I was going to add a picture of a race shirt from last fall but because I like the race I decided against calling it out. You know you’ve gotten at least one completely obnoxious race t-shirt.

Well, disappointed or not, it was time to find some dinner and get some sleep. I had seen a coffee shop that advertised that they had pasta so I went there and had a salad followed by tomato pasta with sliced beef and a cup of tea. Damn, my taxi driver from Singapore was right!

Flashback…flashback…flashback…

Shijian and I were in Singapore, staying at the Peninsular Hotel to support the installation of some oxygen plasma ash systems at a flash memory manufacturer. Our customer was located up in the Woodlands region of Singapore which is quite far from our hotel which was located down near Raffles so every day, twice a day, we enjoyed the company of whatever taxi driver happened to be at the head of the stand when we came out from breakfast.

One day we got in a taxi not knowing that we were about to learn of a massive plot intended to disrupt the world as we knew it. After a few minutes of some conversation which was not interesting enough to stick in my memory, the taxi driver became comfortable enough with us to tell us of the two worst people alive. President Obama and Prince Charles. Whatever you have heard about the faults of either of these two men, forget them. Our taxi driver knew the truth.

President Obama and Prince Charles were the heads of a global conspiracy to have the Queen of England assassinated. That’s not the worst of it. That assassination was not the end-game but only a tactic along the way to achieve their plot of forcing everyone to eat all of their meals at coffee shops!

Back to the present…back to the present…back to the present…

It had taken four years, and the Queen still lives but those two dastardly men had forced me to eat all of my meals at coffee shops that day! The worst part; even though I had been warned in 2011 I didn’t see it until it was too late. Feeling defeated by the global conspiracy, I went back to my hotel and went to bed early.

I woke a bit before my alarm and rolled over and went back to sleep. I hit snooze three times before finally getting up and calling Sarah. Sarah was out with Jenn at a paint-party so we we’re not on the phone long. As I kitted up for the race, my biggest worry was the temperature swing shown in the forecast for the day. It was in the low thirties outside when I awoke and I had not brought a throw-away top so I put on a long-sleeve under my singlet despite the high in the mid-sixties that was being predicted. There were no decisions to be made below the waist. I was in Adidas Adios Boost trainers, Balega Hidden Comfort socks and Adidas racing shorts.

2015 is the first year since 2011 that I belong to only one running club so there was no choice to be made for my singlet.

Though I feared that I might be over-dressed for the race, I was certainly underdressed for the long bit of milling about that precedes the start of big races. There were a bunch of announcements in Korean and then two Pocari Sweat cheerleaders got up on the stage to lead the roughly twenty thousand runners in warm-up exercises. The hip rotating and thrusting that they tried to get everyone to do while making exaggerated arm motions were not like anything I’ve learned from Mike’s track clinics so I did my own warm-up of hiding from the wind in a corner between a Woori Bank and an Angel-in-Us coffee shop. When the dancing was over, I joined the throngs and stood around being cold for a bit longer while there were more announcements and drones cycled above the race. It was unclear if the drones were there to get the race photos or for “security”.

Finally the race started at about 8:10am. The Seoul Marathon organizers must have studied at the D5K School of Races that Start Promptly at 7:15pm-ish. I wish that I could tell you all about Seoul from my run through it but like all races; the scenery was mostly a blur. My focus was on avoiding tripping myself or anyone else as I weaved left and right across the course to make a path through the forest of runners. There were markers every kilometer and there was water and Pocari Sweat every 5km. The water/Pocari Sweat tables were always on the right of the course so given the density of runners, I found that it was best to start working your way to the right about a kilometer out from the stations.

Almost as soon as the was starting to thin out around the 30km mark we were joined by the 10km which shared the last 9.5km of the marathon course with its start delayed 150 minutes behind the marathon. You could tell the 10km runners because apparently it is customary in Korea for everyone to wear the official shirt from the race. The marathon was the blue and yellow shirt that I received and the 10km had a black, short-sleeve shirt with a similar design.

After the finish line they herded us to tables of Pocari Sweat and then out to a photo wall where they would take your picture, superimpose your finish time onto the display and print the picture onto a can of Pocari Sweat. At the time, I was so disappointed with my collapse and 3:13:31 time that I wanted no souvenir with that time showing so I skipped the picture.

After that station, there were more Pocari Sweat stations, a snack station with chocolate-covered marshmallows, bananas and raisins and then a station to return your chip and collect your medal. I had planned to meet Mark and Byungsoo for beers after the race but Mark was stuck in Dongtan for work and I had forgotten to bring my phone and had no way to contact Byungsoo so I grabbed a taxi back to Anguk Station, showered and went back down to Dongtan where I went out for dinner and beers with Mark at the Cocky Pub (a western style bar in downtown Dongtan) where I had a pizza as an appetizer and then the Cocky Burger (a cheese burger with a fried egg). Then it was time to go to bed and start recovering for Boston.

Here is the finisher medal:

Now on to recover from this one and get ready for Boston!