I cut the tip of my finger off--and OH YEAH! I finished that 10k~!
And that's just one of the things I've accomplished this weekend...
Saturday was a crazy, nutso busy day! We had to get up and have Gunnar ready to join his soccer team as they marched in the fall festival parade. I am a bit perplexed at the number of kids marching in this parade as they FAR out-numbered those watching the parade. Interesting.
After the parade, we had to head to the commissary parking lot for Chris' unit's fundraiser car wash. That was sorta fun. We made nearly $500 so that's good.
We then trekked back to the Fall Festival to see what was going on and to chow on some over-priced hotdogs. Nothing was going on and the hotdogs were indeed over-priced. Around 4 we headed home. That night I fixed a good ol' batch of spaghetti for supper so Chris and I would have a good store of carbs for the 10k on Sunday!
Wow! Sunday morning came around EARLY. I just wanted to crawl back in bed. The nanny showed up around 6:45 and we were off in a cab to Seoul City Hall for the race. We arrived about 5 minutes later (we live wicked close to City Hall) and joined the THOUSANDS of Koreans all decked out in their running gear. It was crazy. My first stop was at the shirt booth to exchange my shirt for a smaller one as the one I ordered was too big (I'm still learning Korean sizing) and then to the port-a-john! Fun fun.
Korean races are always so much fun. There are all sorts of these high-energy warm-up programs going on for you to join in on. Crazy aerobic chics doing things on stage you have to be a crazy aerobic chic to be able to do and thousands of people in all shapes and sizes trying to keep up! The music is good too! It's during this time that you size up the competition and me, being the person that I am, make comments to my husband like... "If that guy beats me, I'll kill myself!" :-) ha ha ha ha.
Right on schedule the brew-ha-ha that begins the race commences with fireworks and the launch of hundreds of helium-filled ballons. The crowd grows considerably smaller as the marathon and 1/2 marathon begins. Finally around 8:10 it is our turn to snake our way to the start line and the 10k race is started with it's own personal round of fireworks--a first for me.
Normally there is a large over-head clock that you can see as you cross the start line to see what time you actually cross but not this time so I have NO idea what time my official time started. Oh well. I begin by fast walking the first 3 minutes because A)I needed an official warm-up and B) it was so crowded I really had no choice until the masses started to thin out. We go a block, turn right and here we are running along the Cheonggyecheon Stream where we run 5 km out, cross a bridge and run 5k back to City Hall Plaza. I kept up a good pace the first 5k, finishing that portion in my best ever 5K time of 33 minutes. I cross the bridge and then hit the water and Gatorade stations, discovering once again that drinking and running are not well mixed. But I kept on running because I know if I stop once, it's harder and harder to keep going.
The 2nd half of the race was much harder, as the sun and risen higher in the sky and was beating down on us. Because we were on the East side of the street, there was no shade from the skyscrapers so I just had to deal with it. Around the 7.5km mark there was a sponge station so I cooled myself down with a wet-cold sponge and sucked a bit of water out of it before discarding it to the side. I'm still running! Wow--it's been 4.75 miles of running. Just past the 8K mark, I see a red shirt bobbing ahead and realize it's my husband. It must been a mistake, I thought as I he is a much better runner than I am. I entertain thoughts of catching him but talk myself out of it because I know I'll use the rest of my energy and not be able to finish if I try something like that. Around me more and more people are succombing to walking and the next thing I know, I'm walking. WTF? I speed walk for about 3 minutes and then pick up the pace again to a run. As I round the corner to finish the last block before the finish line, I notice one of the people I had pointed out earlier saying I'd kill myself if he beat me so I put all the energy I had left in me and sprinted the last block to the finish. I love when you finish a race how everyone is cheering for you--it's quite exhilerating. Just as I cross, I look up to see my husband, leaning against the fence in pain. I also notice the race clock says 1:20:02. One hour, twenty minutes and 2 seconds since the race began so I know that I've finished in less than 1:20. I also realize that it took me considerbly longer to run the 2nd half than it did the first.
I approach Chris (whose hip has been hurting him for awhile, and especially since his last jump and who is under doctor's order to not be running) and ask him how long ago he'd finished and he said just a couple of minutes, which totally pissed me off because if I hadn't walked those 3 mintues. THREE MEASLY MINUTES, I could have beat him.
We go to the booth to turn in our time chips and get our finishing medals and bag-o-goodies before hailing a cab and we were home before 10. Not a bad start to a Sunday. It was a LOAD of fun and I can't wait to do it again. We run the free races on post, but it is just different when you are out there, running an official event, with THOUSANDS of others. There is much more energy behind it--for me at least.
I treated myself to a pedicure that afternoon and relaxed. Later we took Gunnar out to practice riding his bike and then over to the park for some swinging and sand time.
That night while cooking dinner, I was slicing potatos and the tip of my finger got in the way and it is now gone. Well a big ol' chunk of the tip of my finger at least!
Today was family picture day at Yongsan Family Park. My dear friend Kristy set up a day where families scheduled a time slot to have pictures taken. Becasue of my inside connection, we had the first slot and then I spent the rest of the morning helping her with pictures. This entailed me jumping around, doing the hokey-pokey, pretending to attack her with a wiffle ball bat etc... whatever it took to get the kids to smile! It was kind of fun. Afterwards we went to lunch at PitaTime--my favorite place in Itaewon next to Thai Orchid!
This afternoon we did some shopping on base, got Lincoln his first ever Christmas present. The way things work here is if you find something you'd better buy it then or it won't be there later! We also bought a Vietnam/Angkor Wat book to better plan our winter holiday trip!
So that's been it for our exciting Columbus Day weekend. Tomorrow we hit the zoo and then on Wednesday Chris is back to work and Linc has his 6 month check-up. Can you believe he's 6 months old already???