I am a double jackass.
I am a first class jackass as it was only stubbornness that had me run today in Seoul.
And I am a second class jackass as I was stupidly arrogant and foolish for running in Seoul today.
Things went a bit awry as GoogleMaps said the 271 bus I needed to get to the start ran every eight minutes. After puzzling through the Korean signage, I figured out a countdown clock indicated the bus seemingly runs every half hour. I was standing outside waiting for it for close to 25 minutes. My timing as always is impeccable.
It was 30-ish degrees this morning… but there was only a light wind so it wasn’t too awful. I lost feeling in my toes but other than that… and despite layering for the morning, about an hour in and the temperature was in the mid 40s and would hit 50 before too long after that.
There wasn’t much English on the signage… nor was it 100% clear to me where I needed to be. But again the potato/potatoe of my stubbornness/perseverance got me to the start line on time.
I was seeded in the A corral based on my historical performances. But I knew today wasn’t going to a PR day… although the course may have lended itself had I been feeling a bit better.
The Seoul Marathon is the world’s second oldest continuously run marathon, starting in 1933 or 36 years after Boston’s inaugural race.
The course map I downloaded was hilariously… uncluttered? Unhelpful? I suppose street names wouldn’t have meant anything to me anyway, and yet…
I had a plan to drop out if the pain got too unbearable… and while the opening miles were grueling, it never hurt any more than it had the past 10 days when I was only walking. But I had a much shorter stride and my gait was… listing? If I were a car, I’d need an alignment to stop the wheel pulling involuntarily to the left.
I was doing ok through the first 6.55 miles and I thought I’d at least go for 13.1 to hit a half marathon for the day.
A number of pacers passed me by – 3:00, 3:10, 3:20. But I was pretty close to a 3:30 pace by the halfway mark.
Of course I knew with my “Peg Leg Hanna” running style I was looking at a progressively slower pace in the back half. But I still thought I could keep going. I was hoping to hit 20 miles and see how I felt from there.
But somewhere along the way, my stride shortened ever more. I was running but I wasn’t moving fast. I’ve often told a story about my first Marine Corps Marathon where I felt pretty good in the final push up the Iwo Jima memorial hill. But though I was running as fast as I could, spectators walking up the hill to meet their runner at the finish had no trouble passing me like I was standing still. That’s how I felt today in Seoul… though instead of the last 0.2 miles, it was the last 11 miles.
My “Gimpy McGimperson” leg actually felt a bit better, but in overcompensating on my stride, my right leg and calf werd hurting… and because I was essentially limping in running, I was foot falling on my toes rather than my heel… and my toes felt poundingly crushed.
But again, no worse than walking, so I figured I’d try and finish. Seoul has a hard 5 hour time limit and I was getting toward that being an issue.
“Because the course runs trough the center of the Seoul Metropolitan City, the race time is strictly limited to 5 hours in order to minimize citizens’ traffic inconvenience.”
–The Seoul Marathon Race Guide
I plodded along… and plodded is the right word there. I was “running” but at a clip probably just above or maybe even below a walking pace. The closing kilometers dragged on… but I made it to the Olympic Stadium where we would take our final steps to go the distance. It’s always fun to run on an Olympic track as it kinda puts the running in perspective, that even though I follow in the footsteps of giants, I still can cover the same distance they did… just at an exponentially slower pace.
I crossed the finish line somewhere around 4:22. So I made it under 5 hours… although we had to walk quite a ways to get the medal to prove we had done it. I think I got to the table just in time.
And then I had to deal with a whole helluva lot of stairs to get to the metro and ride back to the AirBNB. Funny side story — I wasn’t sure WHERE the metro station was and I asked a volunteer. They didn’t know the English word “Metro” and I didn’t know the Korean term. So I tried “subway” and the woman asked me a very smart question: “Subway to eat or subway to ride?” It’s true — I did pass a Subway on my way to the subway.
Post race, I tried to stretch out my worn out legs. They still hurt… I would say they smart but honestly this was such a dumb play on my part I don’t think we can call anything about me smart today.
I’m just about to dive in to what’s hailed as one of the best burgers in Seoul.
Rather than typing with my mouth full, my Garmin’s data probably retells the day better than I have done above. So here’s a recap (and ya know what — my GPS run kinda DOES look like that course map!).
