The Race Goes On

Half Marathon #2

My student/running buddy and I have run one more half marathon (along the beautiful Han River and Anyang Stream) together which was equally as awesome as the first and actually much easier since I paced myself this time. I still took over two hours but I never let myself get exhausted and, therefore, never had to stop! I considered that a success. 

We have one more race that we're planning to run together and hopefully I'll get it in less than two hours! Also...this time I couldn't refrain from taking pictures while running because the scenery was just too awesome (I'm gonna use that as my excuse for taking over two hours), not that pictures really do it any justice.

The Spartan Race!!

A couple weeks later, the Reebok Spartan Race I'd been waiting for finally came to Korea and it was a BLAST! My favorite part? My team! It was just two of my best friends and I...a Korean, a Peruvian and an American. Hilariously to us, we had no common language and yet we were easily able to communicate with each other. Choi and I spoke English, Tania and I spoke Spanish, and Choi and Tania spoke Korean. We had all three languages going the whole day and had perfect teamwork as a result!

The race itself was just as awesome as I'd hoped. All I'd wanted was a physical challenge out in the sun with my friends and I got just that. It was held at Vivaldi Park, a beautiful ski resort in Gang-won Province. Instead of the 5k run that we expected, we hiked up these enormous ski hills multiple times and the views at the top were absolutely incredible. The race was made up of mostly men, the majority of them military, but even they were having a tough time making it up those mountains. The obstacles throughout the race were also fun - monkey bars, climbing over walls, crawling under fences, hiking through woods, lifting cement blocks, flipping tires, carrying sandbags up one of the steepest hills, climbing a rope, swimming through mud, crawling under barbed wire, throwing spears, and jumping over fire just before the finish line! If you failed at an obstacle, you had to do 30 burpees with one of the workers watching you and counting. I ended up doing 60 thanks to the rope above the lake of mud and the fact that I'd never before tried to spear someone.

It was an amazing workout, so much fun and we even learned some little lessons. One of my friends really considered quitting about halfway up the first hill but, like they'd said at the beginning of the race, even if you have to carry your friends the whole way, everyone finishes! We held her hands and made sure we stopped to rest with her when she needed it. At the end of the race, we were all proud of ourselves but she had learned a big lesson in how much she could do if she pushed herself. I had a big lesson in there too because normally I like to compete...even if it's just with myself...and see how fast or how well I can do things. It was an exercise for me in self-control and teamwork. Good thing, too, because there's no way I ever could have climbed over those tall walls without my amazing teammates' help!

I most definitely recommend this or any other similar race to everyone and can't wait til I get the chance to do another!!