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Notes

An inaugural trail race in a small historical town about 2 hours away from Seoul. I got FREE entry plus shuttle bus and acommodation for the night before, so didn't mind traveling at all. They were giving away freen entries via running clubs since they were having a difficult time getting enough participants. It coicided with the beginning of Chuseok, one of the longest holiday in Korea, so I guess the timing wasn't great for many people. I did the 20k, but there were also 6, 40 and 60k courses.

Well, this race was full of plot twists. The course wasn't marked well, so many runners got lost during the run including myself. While I wanted to enjoy the event, I also wanted to have a good placement knowing that the women's field was very small with no sponsored elite runners.

The mindset I'm trying to achieve when something unexpected happens during a trail race is to just yell "Plot Twist!" in my mind and move on. Well, that plot twist arrived much sooner than I thought, 2.5k into the race to be exact.

There were about a dozen runners gathered around at a kind of a T-junction trying to figure out which way to go. The course map provided on the event website was just a jpeg image, so there was no data on a "map." The runners said they were there for about a minute already, and while many runners were feeling flustered and frustrated going back and forth, I just found the whole situation hilarious.

There were supposed to be ribbons indicating the course, but none was in sight. Eventually, a small group of runners broke off and decided to venture up a rather steep climb behind a temple (was covered with overgrown bushes) to see if they could reach a path above that may have ribbons. Soon, we heard them say "it's this way!!" so the remainder of the runners followed suit.

By then, I already have lost more than 5 minutes from the group of runners ahead of me, so I thought, "there goes my chance of good placement..." But that put me in a relaxed mood and thought, "OK, at least there's no worry about going out too fast."

I started chatting with another runner who had done the 250k staged race in Gobi Desert earlier this year. Wowza... He said it was very tiring and physically challenging. Yup, I'm sure it was! I asked him if he had a time goal today, and he said, no, just to finish and enjoy. He was coming back from a bicycle injury and showed me his scar.

He was a really interesting guy to talk to, so I ran with him for a while, but I could tell that I had much more in the tank from his breathing. So I decided to move on and see if I could continue running at that comfortable pace without slowing down.

As usual, I power-hiked all the climbs and ran at a pace that felt comfortable during the flat and downhill sections. Since the course was a loop with a long out n' back section (13k), it was good to know all the climbs would be the downhills on my way back.

I was able to count how many female runners were ahead of me during the switch-back. I was fourth, so that gave me some motivation. But it took quite a while to reach the turn-around point (@6.5k) after they passed me, so I knew I was far behind them time-wise.

After around the 8km mark, there was no one around me except this one runner ahead of me (bib #234). So I just focused on staying behind him, mostly because I didn't want to get lost. I sensed he was irritated that there was a female runner breathing down his neck, so I backed down a bit but made sure he was in sight.

Soon we caught up with a small group of runners (including the the two female runners that were ahead of me) tyring to figure out which path to follow. The #234 guy appeared to be confident, so we followed his lead and continued forward.

I could feel that one of the female runners (red tanktop) was a bit annoyed that I caught up with her while they were trying to figure out the course. Only if she had known that I was lost earlier too...! The other female runner had tripped and fell over and her knee was in a bloody mess. (I offered her if she wanted Tylenol to numb her pain, but she said it was OK.)

The last 5k of the race was *very* confusing. We had to run through the town to get to a small hilly park to do a loop, and then come down again to get back to where we had started.

By the time we reached the park, it was the #234 guy, the red tanktop runner and me following the two. We were about 100m apart but #234 made a U-turn indicating he wasn't sure if he was following the right route. So the red runner stopped running, I stopped running, and we were all hot, tired and frustrated about the lack of course markings

The two runners weren't really talking to each other to figure out which way to go. They seem to think there's no point since either of them were sure, and whichever way they chose would be based solely on their gut feeling. And I wasn't of much use because of the language barrier.

So eventually, the #234 took off to one direction, and the red runner took off to another, and I was all alone without a clue where I was. Grrrreat.

I stood around for a while mostly just to mentally regroup. I had no idea which way to go. I had visions of myself wandering around clueless and arriving at the finish line a few hours from now. I had supposedly run over 18k at that point so the finish line was supposed to be close, yet SO far not knowing where I was.

I went back up to the main road and headed to the opposite direction from which I came. I was in no mood for back tracking and simply wanted to move forward. But no runners in sight. I asked a man who was enjoying a stroll in the park if he had seen any runners. He said he had seen one female runner who was injured drop out but no one else.

So I just kept running and finally saw a ribbon. What a relief it was! From there onwards, I saw a couple of race volunteers standing at confusing turns to guide the runners to the correct way. As I was coming down from the park to the town center, I saw the #234 runner and a few runners ahead of me.

Now we were running through the town center on the sidewalk and could not see any course markings. No more ribbons, just a few volunteers standing at occasional intersections to make sure we don't get run over by a car.

By then I had passed the #234 and the other runner, so I had to constantly stop to see if I was running in the right direction. Am I supposed to turn here? Are the other runners still behind me??

Finally I came to a T-junction which ran along the park where we started, so I knew I was not going to get lost any more. But then again, it wasn't very clear where we were supposed to enter the park. I jogged around a bit at an entry where a banner was (but no staff!), and eventually decided to run up the path to see if I can see the finish line. And there it was!

At Korean trail running events, they hold up the finish line tape for every runner so they can celebrate finishing the race.

There were course mishaps and very few female runners, but I came in second place which was a nice suprise. First time to podium. Yay!

After the race, I killed time on the lawn until the 40k runners finished (everyone complained about getting lost as soon as they crossed the finish line), and went for a meal and bath with Martin (Irish) and Joe (American).

I really enjoyed this race since I got to meet quite a few people who were running the upcoming TransJeju. Will be nice to see them again in a couple of weeks.

adidas hthr. tank+MH shorts+drymax

fuel: teokk+gels+rice crackers