While I do enjoy running, and try to hit the road at least twice a week, I'm by no means a great runner. But a bunch of dudes I wrestle with wanted to run a "marathon" (every road race in Korea is called a marathon) so I decided to dust off my short shorts, sneakers, and sweatbands for my first Korean run.
KC and Vitor run the 11th Street 11K. Again, I'm not speed racer but I can keep a decent pace for somebody with a fake knee (Old Clicky) and a broken neck (Mekaneck).
The race was sponsored by a Korean website called 11th Street, an online bidding website kind of like eBay, but a lot more confusing. Since the store is called 11th Street, they opted to do an 11 kilometer road race instead of the usual 10K. So I needed to up my training to add an extra kilometer; nobody else uses miles, USA.
I ran, stretched, got some acupuncture, quit drinking, ate well, and even found a little rock path near my house that you walk on for some free foot massages. All that was pretty awesome. I even had a group of buddies to run with, and luckily, they're wrestlers, not runners. But, as things go, all of my teammates except one either injured themselves (not wrestling, but playing soccer) or just decided to skip the race.
My teammate was hungover, slept shittily, and spent his night and morning plowing some nameless tart. So it was just yours truly and Vitor. Vitor isn't his real name just his "English" name. Since we both do Brazilian jiu jitsu, he picked the name of his favorite MMA fighter Vitor Belfort—however, in Korea they have a hard time pronounced both the V and R of Vitor, so it usually sounds like "Bee-toe."
Vitor and I were supposed to meet on the race day at about 9 a.m. to stretch, discuss some strategy, and pick up all the race stuff the event promoters forgot to mail me (apparently my address is really hard to find, even though it's a giant effing university). Well, in typical Korean style, Vitor was late. Really late. About an hour late. Why?
"Last day night Vitor drunken. Vitor meet one-night girl. Sorry."
If you don't speak Konglish (Korean English), here's the translation: "Last night I decided I needed to drink a plethora of alcohol. After these excursions, I met a femme fatale who coerced me into performing intimate relations. I would like to sincerely apologize. But not really."
So my teammate was hungover, slept shittily, and spent his night and morning plowing some nameless tart. Then he added this: "Vitor no running very," which also means, "I also have not trained for this race." Is this a recipe for disaster? Nope, this is the beginning of awesomeness.
After picking up my race shirt and number bib, we didn't have time for much. We changed, then stretched and did jumping jacks for about two minutes, then searched for a giant crowd of people which we assumed would be the starting line. They didn't do a great job with the signs in Korea and there wasn't a single one in English. I thought this was stupid, until I realized I was the only wayguk (foreigner) in the race.
The starting gun boomed! The pack of runners wasn't very quick, but Vitor explained it pretty quickly. "See handsome guy? Very famous Korean." Of course, all the Koreans needed a high five from this celebrity guy and some even stopped the race to take a photo with him. Ah, Koreans. When I ran by the comedian (I think that's why he was famous), he yelled a few things to me including, "Good luck English man!" Well, I'm American, but, whatever.
After the celebrity sighting, the pace matched my starting stride pretty well. Then, plop. Another bottleneck. The current obstacle happened to be a few stairs with an opening of only three meters (about 10 feet).
If you've ever been to Chinatown or Little Tokyo or Koreatown, you know how those places are crowded? Well, so is real Asia. We spent a lot of time and energy dodging old ladies and old dudes, but also cruising around people answering text messages or taking photos of themselves near completely normal-looking benches.
Not to toot my own horn, but I was probably the second-biggest celebrity. Not because the entire continent of Asia adores my two-pack abs, tattoos, and hilarious writing on the website you're reading right now, but mostly because I was the only white dude there. A few people either caught up or slowed down just to run with Vitor and me. So that was kind of cool.
Also, in all the other road races I've run (which is actually just one, the Bolder Boulder, I've done it three or four times though) you run on the (duh) road. But in Korea, we ran on dirt, rocks, grass, Astroturf, track, road, sand and even some cement. I don't know if it affects your running or anything, I just thought it was kind of weird.
During the run, we saw some cool stuff. We started (and I'll give away the ending: I also finished) at the Seoul World Cup 2002 Stadium, where the world played soccer in the World Cup (I will always say "soccer" to "football"; get over it, I'm American). It's a gigantic stadium with all types of cool statues, flags, memorials, and banners. Just nothing that great to run on. But we also cruised through some parks, along the famous Han River, over some bridges, and even saw some skateboarders, dancers, bike riders, random weirdos, and other shitfaced people (Koreans love them some day drinking). It was a great view of the city and country and the folks that fill it up.
Vitor and I had a great time running, shouting "Fighting!" (the Korean national chant, kind of like "Go USA!" or "God Save the Queen" or "Put another shrimp on the Barbie," or whateverthehell Australians yell) and pidgin talking back and forth (my Korean sucks almost as bad as his English).
As we clicked off our final few kilometers, we started to lag. Vitor's beer muscles started to slow down and I am just old, broken, and not in the best shape to begin with. Also, while I'd prepped myself for crowds, long distances, and dodging dumbasses, I hadn't readied myself for the effing heat. Korea gets hot. Real hot. And humid as the Incredible Hulk's purple-ball pouch.
On top of that, during all my training I don't think I ran up a single incline more than about 15 degrees. However, this course seemed to pack all of the mountains of Korea in one 11-kilometer trail.
So our energy was sapped. We started to fade.
But, we saw a lot of signs for giveaways. Usually if your bib number matched something, you could win a free hat, shirt, or shoes. However, the last thing was a free Coach bag—maybe a purse, backpack, or man-purse, I don't know shit about designers. Surprisingly, Vitor's number matched the number on the sign. We were both jacked! Then Vitor talked about which of his six girlfriends he would give it to. "Big Boobs? Sucky Sucky Girl? China Girl? Tall Girl? Blonde Girl? New One-Night Girl?"
We powered through the last bit of the race and as we crossed the finish line I heard, "Go Vitor! Go KC!" I looked around, shocked that somebody knew us, then remembered our jiu-jitsu coach said he'd be there. It was pretty awesome to have somebody at the end.
I set a goal at finishing my 11K in under an hour and ten minutes, and I made it, just effing barely at 1:09:37—remember, I said I was a crappy runner.
They gave us some medals, some water, some Powerade, and a few other cool things. When we went to collect Vito's Coach bag, it turned out you had to stop at the sign and fill out a survey in order to win the Coach bag. Stopping during the middle of a race? What kind of stupid shit is that? Well, it is Korea.
After all that, Vitor and I took off our shirts and just tried to hydrate. He was still hungover and I was just exhausted. I snapped a few photos with other folks who seemed to want to take photos with a white person—again, it's just Korea.
Nobody got hurt (that I know of), I made my time, and I successfully crossed another thing off my Korean Bucket List. I also made a forever friend and saw a lot of Seoul I probably would never see without running my ass off.
Finally, we started the most popular pastime in Korea: drinking beers. After running for more than an hour, it's pretty awesome that you get shitfaced after one beer. I later heard that Vitor hooked up with another girl, while I just passed out and disappointed my girlfriend. Oh well, to be young…