Fitness, fitness, fitness

Well, well. It seems it has been a long time since my last post. It is now 2012, obviously, and things are going great in my little neighborhood of Sunae-dong.

Today is a gorgeous day, 21C and sunny! This morning I ventured out bright and early with my friend Leann to run in the Bundang Gumpu Marathon.  I had signed up for this weeks ago and had planned on training and being in proper race form. However, I have kind of slacked off and haven’t even run in the past few weeks. So needless to say, I was nervous as all hell. 21km is really, really far!!! I didn’t know if I could do it or if my legs would keep going. But I committed and finished a half marathon is a goal on my list, so I had to try. For motivation I wrote “keep going” on my for arm so if I was feeling like stopping I could just look down and see it. My goal for this race was just to finish. Ideally I was hoping for around 2 hr 30 mins, but ultimately if I finished I would be pleased.

When the race began I was feeling good, I kept telling myself that if I needed to walk I could do so at the 10km mark. When the 10km mark came, I was feeling some pain in my IT band(I have been having a lot of problems with it lately) and I needed to pee, so I made a quick stop at the washroom and continued on my way.  No walking, I kept telling myself. I will finish this race and run the whole way. It was tough, sometimes I felt like I was going at a snail’s pace. But no matter what, I kept running. Soon came the 15km mark and I realized, “oh my god, I can actually finish this! 6km left, that’s nothing!” Not wanting to use up all my energy, I kept my slow pace going. At 18km, both my legs were in a lot of pain, but I had only 3kms left to go!! I was going to make it!!!  Once I saw the 20km sign a giant smile came across my face! Here I was, 1km left from finishing my first half marathon!  I stepped up the pace and suddenly felt like I had a second wind. As I sprinted into the finish line, my friends were there cheering me on and I looked at the time, 2:20!!! I had made it! And beat my goal time by 10 mins! Its hours later now and I still can’t wipe the smile off my face! I ran the entire race and finished with an acceptable time for a first timer! I can only think, about how much better I could be if I really pushed myself into training!  This feeling, the runner’s high, is why I run, why I push myself to do things I don’t think I can. It’s a feeling I can’t get anywhere else.

I have been in a bit of a funk lately. A lot of my good friends have recently left Korea for new adventures and I spent the last week getting over some nasty food poisoning. Today was just the thing I needed to propel myself out of this hole and back into life! 

Last weekend, I hit the pavement on my bike with my friend and fellow cyclist, Jared. We headed up to Gangchon for the weekend for our friends, Suzie and Ski’s, going away weekend. It was my first weekend on the bike this year and I had a blast. Jared is known for taking the most mountaineous routes he can find while cycling, so I knew I was in for a hard ride. Saturday the weather was great and we tackled a handful of climbs. I was spent!! But being back on the bike felt awesome! Once in Gangchon we met up with the rest of our friends and had some delicious dak galbi dinner(or so I thought, more on this later) Jared and I retired early since we had another big day of riding the next day, while the rest of the crew drank and partied the night away.

Sunday morning came quickly and soon we were on the road. Our route for the day was supposed to be much easier than Saturdays so I was not too worried. Boy were we wrong. Sunday brought on some crazy strong head winds. For the better part of the day, we were cycling into 35km/hr winds. The winds were exhausting and no matter where we turned we couldn’t get away from them. Sunday was a grueling day, there were times when I didn’t think I could go on, but what was I supposed to do? Walk home? So I peddled on and we finally made it all the way home. Back at my place I was pleased I had finally finished a two day ride in the mountains! I was feeling great, until about 9pm.

All of a sudden I was running to the bathroom and vomiting my guts out. This was the beginning of one of the worst nights of my life. I spent the night running back and forth between the bathroom and my bed. I was burning up and spewing from everywhere. I couldn’t believe how sick and miserable I was. When morning came I immediately called my boss and told her I couldn’t come in. I was dehydrated and barely able to move. I couldn’t even keep down water. After awhile, I found out from Jared that he was sick as well. Food poisoning he said. So we figured it must have been something we both ate. Through out the day we found out a few others from the group were sick as well and concluded it must have been the dak galbi we had all eaten.  So what was an awesome weekend of riding was capped off by the worst night I have ever had. Oh well, I am thankful it didn’t happen while we were still on the road, that would have been terrible.

This has been and eventful few months in my life and I am sure the next few will be even more so. On the schedule for next month is another goal from my list, The Great Wall Marathon in China. I am very, very, VERY excited about this one! Not only is it an adventure marathon, but I get to do it on the Great Wall!! How awesome is that?! After that I’ll have about 4 months left here in Korea before I head home to Canada to yet another new city. I will be calling Ottawa my home in October and will hopefully be attending university there in the fall of 2013. 

Until next time, run on!