Having some feelings of déjà soju

Once upon a time I had a blog on Livejournal. I could not now begin to guess which defunct email I signed up with, what my password was or even what my username was. I suppose I could use google to find out if Livejournal still exists but researching things so that my posts would be accurate or useful for anyone would be a departure from my style with this thing. I know when I had the blog and how long it lasted. It wasn’t long. The last I posted to that blog a farewell to a pair of Brooks Ghost trainers from my hotel room at the Ramada Hotel in Dongtan, Korea in November 2010.

That trip to Korea was the most difficult trip of my professional career. Toward the end of June in 2010 I moved out of the house that I shared with Ken, Pat, Duncan and Amy in Beverly and put all of my stuff in my parents’ basement, kissed Sarah goodbye at Logan and went off Germany for work: technically homeless. It wasn’t the earliest days of Skype but neither was it like it is today. We spent as much time troubleshooting as anything else on our calls but by the time I was flying home from Germany we had found an apartment in East Arlington near Spy Pond. It was a nice, open-concept space with a fire place and we were the only tenants in the building so we could be as loud as we pleased. We moved in over the course of August with a brief pause to go on holiday in Puerto Rico for a week.

September came easy enough. I had an assignment to go to visit a customer on the south coast of France for a week. It was the kind of trip where I took a redeye out of Boston on Sunday night and was on my way home first thing the next Saturday morning. In the morning I set my alarm for eight to have some croissants and cappuccino at the hotel bar. Around nine I would get to the Fab to meet the customer to discuss the plan for the day until our 10am espresso break. After the break I worked straight on until lunch at noon which was typically two courses and then another espresso break. We would work until half past three when it was time for the afternoon espresso bream. At four we would meet to discuss what we had accomplished that day and then by about half past four it was time to go back to the hotel. By noon on Friday my job was done and the customer signed off.

I have not before or since had such an vacation-like trip for work (excluding presenting at conferences or pre-sales meetings) but when I got back to Arlington with two relatively easy trips to Europe under my belt I was confident it would always be so easy. Not long after returning to Boston I was assigned to go to Korea for three weeks to oversee the qualification of the first of our new cluster-ash tool in Asia. I landed at Incheon Airport, got some cash from the ATM and proceeded to immediately get scammed to the tune of $250 for a taxi ride to the Ramada Hotel in Dongtan. When I got to Dongtan YJ took me out for sushi, bugs and soju.

When I landed in Korea that October I had not had an alcoholic drink since leaving Puerto Rico in August. I claimed that it was because I was in training for the New York Marathon. Back then the qualification standards for New York were more forgiving and I qualifies with a 1:23:21 half marathon in Wisconsin the previous summer and I was registered for the race but my training log exposes the lie.

I ran this race in August. It was so cold at the start...

I landed in Korea with 885.82 miles in my log. It is true that at that time it was the most miles I had ever run by October but it was also my first year with a training log so that isn’t much of a statement . Also, I had finished June with 774.56 miles in the log. It doesn’t take a professional running coach to tell you that an average of 37 miles per month for the last three months before race is not a recipe for a marathon PR. The abstinence from the sauce had been purely aspirational. I was always sure that I would get things together the next morning and kick my training into gear for real.

The soju hit me hard that first night and I don’t recall getting back to the hotel that night but it was the jetlag that finally kicked me into gear and helped me start logging miles again. I ran 65.48 miles in my first two weeks in Korea and was sure that things would be okay for the NYC Marathon. Then my trip got extended by two weeks and I wasn’t going to get home until after the race. There is a five day gap in my running log following that call. My next run was on Halloween (Sunday 10/31/10). I’ll still complain at times (like right now?) about having to miss that race for work but in reality the difficulty of that race had nothing to do with skipping a marathon (NYC that year was my 4th of 5 consecutive marathons that I didn’t finish…it was my 3rd of 4 that I did not even take the start line). The trip was so hard because of the time difference, the hours and being away from Sarah for so long. When I was awake Sarah was asleep. Alone in Korea I used that old Livejournal to shout into the void in hopes of hearing my own echo.

In 2011 and in 2012 I did not travel to Korea. In 2013 I visited Suwon for a week to make a presentation to a customer but stayed in Suwon and only made it to Dongtan for some pre and post meetings at our Field office. In 2014 I spent another three weeks in Suwon to start the year but by the time I was making my monthly trips to Dongtan starting in August there was a new hotel called the Shilla Stay which became a home away from home. I never returned to that Dongtan Ramada where it all started (by "it all" I just mean where I first blogged about running and where I first stayed in Korea). This trip though is like the old days all over. I am signed up for the NYC Marathon.

I had better make it to the start line this time around!

My last month (May) was remarkably low on mileage: though I will land in Korea with 1052.87 miles in my log which is the most I’ve ever had by the end of June it is not due to recent diligence with my running: I ran only 75.73 of those miles in May. Like 2011 I found out on Father’s Day weekend that I needed to travel somewhat suddenly. When I went to book my flight to Korea the connection out of Boston to SFO was canceled for Tuesday morning so I needed to take the same routing through Tokyo that I took back in 2010. Complementary beer and wine has even returned to the United International Economy flights! Now I’m on my way back to the Dongtan Ramada. Like 2010, I’ll the only one from the Factory staying in Dongtan.

I usually have some company over here.

It is almost poetic symmetry. I just hope that this is marking a return to the kinds of trips I used to take to Dresden and Rousset rather than the start of another cycle of the crazy travel of 2010, 2011, 2014 and the first half 2015. It leaves me to wonder if this blog will soon be defunct like the first one or if I’ll finally get back to writing to it like I did back in 2013. Back when I started this thing I would post weeklies of my workouts. Now I have my running log, RunningAhead, Garmin Connect, Athlinks and Strava. Writing another list of what slow laps of Pine Banks Park I ran seems worse than superfluous. That said, this is at its core a running blog so I should say something about my running of late.

Late in May, Sarah and I went out to California to meet Kristjan and hike Kings Canyon, Sequoia and Yosemite. It was an awesome time and it was great to hang out with Kristjan again but coming down from the lower falls in Yosemite on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend I felt something go in my right knee. It was a little painful to put weight on it but the feeling was more “squishy” than it was painful.

I just have my iphone; Sarah has the good camera so my pictures from the parks don't do them justice.

I took a couple days off when we got home and got back into running on the following Thursday with a Melrose Running Club track workout in Stoneham. It was 12x400 at 80-74sec. This should not have been so tough (Mike had me doing 10x800 at 2:38-2:32 back at the height of my Maine Coast Marathon training) but I was out of shape and my form suffered. My knee was tight for the next couple days but I decided to sign up for the Newburyport River Run Half Marathon the following Sunday.

After a long wait for the porta-john and a short warm-up I thought my knee felt fine and the race went out exceptionally slowly so I took the lead about half a mile into the course. The field was not competitive so I was able to hold the lead unchallenged at a workout pace (around 6:15ish) through the first three miles. Then my knee went around three and a half. I went suddenly and I came off the course and stretched it out then tried some shuffling steps. There was a cash prize and the chase pack hadn’t caught up yet so I thought I’d give it a try at winning it on one wheel. By mile four three runners passed me. By mile five I wasn’t even in contention for an age group anymore. At mile eight I stopped my Garmin and just settled for walking it in just because I didn’t know how to get back to Sarah or the car without following the course. With 1:40 and change showing on the clock I stepped off the course a few feet before the finish for the DNF and went home with Sarah to shower off and ice my knee. My race was a disappointment but Sarah had run a PR at the 5k by almost 5 minutes!

As I always do when I have a big failure at a race, I wanted redemption and I had only two races on my radar for June. I had the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge 3.5 Mile race on 6/11 and the 26x1 Relay on 6/27. The JP Morgan Corporate Challenge is my least favorite race ever. I cannot stand the overcrowded start without any legitimate attempts to seed the race. I always dehydrate as the sun bakes the 10,000 or so of us packed for too long at the start line while there are a bunch of announcements to which I don’t pay any attention. I hate the race but once I have the number pinned to my chest and they announce the start it becomes a race. I was 6 seconds slower than last year (20:07) and 5 seconds slower than 2013 but perhaps due to a coincidence with the USATF-NE 5K up in Hollis, NH I had my best placement at 56th. I was not feeling the race at all and would have been slower but Mike was at the start and as usual I just tried to hang on as close as I could. It wasn’t that close; he was somewhere between 20-30 seconds faster than me.

This might be the first year that I was happy with the Axcelis team singlets. It helped that I didn't need to look at the back though.

The 26x1 Cup Relay at Tufts is one of my favorite races ever. As you can guess from the race date of this Saturday and me recent arrival in Korea I’m going to miss this one again. Maybe I’ll pick up a race around the 4th of July or maybe I’ll make it to Reading in time for the FORR 5k next month but if not my next test will be the Around the Lake Marathon.

Last year, on the night of the Around the Lake Marathon I was sitting on the porch drinking a Harpoon UFO when Sarah got home and asked me if I was actually going to run the marathon. “I guess” I replied so Sarah finished my beer and we went over to the start. I ran two laps alternating taking the lead and following the leader but the race makes 8 laps of the lake and Sarah and I had an agreement that we would go grab a beer when I was done running so I called it a night after that second lap. This year I’ll make the agreement to have that beer when I’ve finished the race. I only have a 3:04:09 for Boston 2016 which I don’t expect to hold up so I’ll need to better that time either in Wakefield next month or France in September.

You all go enjoy that 26x1 Relay for me. I wish I was sharpening my spikes today to get ready to be there with you instead of having another dish of kimchi. Shout out to Kevin for his finish at Mt. Washington last weekend; see you at the Wakefield marathon!