five in 20.five

It's almost been two weeks since I ran my fifth marathon; five before 25, check that one off the list. I don't know how I feel about turning 25. I feel like I should have accomplished more, but I suppose I can blame that on my severe delusions of grandeur as a child thinking that anyone could become an overnight success just by walking down the street. Le sigh. That's not why I'm writing tonight, on the eve of my 25th.... but can it really be the eve, because I was born in Chicago, and technically - okay, while it is currently the 24th there, it will be the 25th in less than two hours here and I wasn't born right at midnight, but at noon:37... - we're in the future here. By Korean standards I was 25 when I moved here, which I was totally not okay with. But whatever, rambling and I haven't even starting talking about what I signed on to write about...

Two weeks! The time has flown! I went for my first run since the big one on Tuesday evening and it was a little creaky, but it was good to get out on the road again and I feel like I'm getting back into the swing of things.

I enjoyed having a goal to run for, but at the same time I've been gearing up for 26.2s (or 42.195s if we do km, and that sounds waaaay more daunting/impressive) since late-December/early-January. Granted I didn't always stick absolutely to the schedule, but I did most of the work unless I was sick or had achey knees. I'm happy to be able to run purely for fun again, and go whatever distance I please without worrying how it will affect a weekend long run or whether I'll be able to get in six miles before school.

To speak of the marathon! It was held on Jeju Island, on the northern coast, and it was by far the most beautiful place I've ever run. I went with my friends, Annie, Jennie and Sarah who were all running the half, as was our friend Lorna, who we saw before the race. We started out on a red rubber track at 9am, there couldn't have been more than 300 people running (I could be exaggerating, but it seemed pretty small in comparison to the other marathons I've run), and there was a 10km run, half-marathon, marathon, and some odd-distance walkers. It was bizarre, but nice because it made it really feel like just any other long Sunday morning run with a bunch of friends; no pressure whatsoever.

The course was a turn-around at 13.1 miles, and I loved every single moment of it. There were water stations set up every 2.5km after the first 5km, and the local fisherman and village folk would turn, wave and cheer us on as we passed by. The beginning of the run was overcast and cool with the breeze coming off the dark ocean, giant windmills dotted the coastline and loomed overhead, droning as we made our way down the coast. In my excitement, I ran the first half in two hours and seven minutes, which was a bad call given that at the turn-around I thought to myself, I came here to run this, so by jove, I'm going to run! and I did, I ran through the dull pain in my left knee that grew and then shifted to my right hip and then shifted to behind my left shoulder blade. I ran when I should have walked and stretched my legs, but I wanted to try something new and I wasn't trying to beat any of my own records, I just wanted to do it. As much as I told myself it wasn't a big deal, it was still pretty disappointing to glance down at my watch the minutes tick onto my already slowing time.

As late morning approached, so did the sun decide to come out from behind the gray clouds. It got hotter and I found myself unable to recall if what I was currently seeing was something I had seen before or if it was in some strange surrealist seaside dream. There were rattling noises in the shrubbery and I imagined little gnomes shaking maracas to cheer me on, but figured that if I stopped to inspect it would probably be something less sweet/awesome and super scary/deadly. It was getting hot, not Chicago 2008 hot, but hot nonetheless.

I ran with a business man, Mr. Park for the first 10 miles or so, he had a Go! St. Louis hat on so I struck up a conversation with him, "Are you from St. Louis?" We talked about how that was my first race and America and blah, blah, blah, he's Korean but lives in Japan and works for Toyota. He was a nice guy, but I later found out that what he told me meant "good luck" ("ha-nada-ra-seyo") or what I heard and repeated to everyone who looked Korean that I passed or they passed me actually means nothing. I laughed about it, and I'm sure the Koreans appreciated it even though after I passed they probably shook their heads and thought, Oh, silly migook talking gibberish! And there was another American girl from Ohio and it was her first race, so I talked to her about running things and missing America.

Speaking of missing America, I do. Running along the seaside, especially that last half when I was alone for most of it, I kept wishing I was running on the Chicago Lakeshore path and it made me happy and sad all at once. Happy that I've had so many good memories there and sad because it and they seem so far away. I also spent a lot of time thinking about what I should think about, and not thinking, and then thinking about What Would David Blaine Do? because he's done all those Houdini-esque stunts where he's trapped some crazy place for x amount of hours/days and has to do something to while away the time, but then I heard the rattling again so my mind skipped to David the Gnome and how fun I used to think it would be to ride a fox through the forest, but they're really small. Also, there were ajushis and ajummas spreading out seaweed to dry on the sides of the road and piles of garlic to be shucked and sold because the season of kimchi preparation is upon us, but in my long-distance delirium I imagined that they were sorting through the seaweed to find sea garlic which I'm pretty sure doesn't even exist and I just made it up.

Anyway, it was a great run and sprinting across that finish line felt wonderful knowing that no matter how crazy it was that I didn't stop to walk, not even through the water stations (there was stopping to drink and stretch, but it was short-short), I ran through it all. And although I didn't break any world records I'm happy that I got this one in before tomorrow, and the last two were less than three months apart - I think that's kind of neat, and really crazy and I'm almost 110% positive I won't do that again.

Oh, and we took a 5ish-hour ferry and a 4 and a half-hour train back, what with transferring and waiting and stopping and all that jazz we got back at 4am Monday. I would upload the pictures, but I'm going to try to wake up and get in a run before I spend all day eating the cakes that my students said they were bringing me, until then, I leave you with this from Mr. Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running:

"My time, the rank I attain, my outward appearance - all of these are secondary. For a runner like me, what's really important is reaching the goal I set myself, under my own power. I give it everything I have, endure what needs enduring, and am able, in my own way, to be satisfied. From out of the failures and joys I always try to come away having grasped a concrete lesson. (It's got to be concrete, no matter how small it is.) And I hope that, over time, as one race follows another, in the end I'll reach a place I'm content with. Or maybe just catch a glimpse of it. (Yes, that's a more appropriate way of putting it.)"