So I am happy to announce that I've been training and running road races in South Korea. I've realized that the pain I put my body through in Cross/Track in college is not completely wasted. Although 5K's and 10K's are far different than a half mile, I can still feel the remnants of my fitness. I would say the hardest transition to these distances is mental. For the half, you know you can endure any amount of pain and black out at the line in less than 2 minutes. In 10K's, you have up to 40 minutes to think about how much pain you're in. There is a tremendous temptation to slow down to a pace where the pain is bearable.
Anyways, I have now run my first and second 10K road races. They were both extremely fun to compete in. I am so addicted to that nervous feeling before a race. My first race was really unexpected because I was not registered and didn't know I was going to run until the morning of the race. I hadn't got much sleep. That morning I went to the Asics store, which is thankfully in my city, and bought a nice pair of racing flats, hopped on the bus to Yeouido. I barely had time to warm up and stretch by the time I got my racing packet from the organizer of team dirt. Of course, the person whom I was running for was a girl, and the jersey did not fit. So I swapped with someone else. You actually had to wear the red shirts for the Nike+Human 10K Race. I made it to the front and felt pretty good. I just got myself mentally psyched and was excited to be in such light racing flats. During my warm up I felt like I was running on air. The gun went off and so did we. The first couple miles felt like I wasn't even breathing. About this time the lead pack took off and I was in the chase pack by the time we crossed the Han river the first time. While on the bridge, I was humbled when a girl steadily came up to us. I decided to draft her and see if she couldn't drag me out of the chase pack but I couldn't keep up. However, it was good because she helped me and a couple other guys get out of the pack and establish ourselves. On the second bridge, all I remember is trying to catch the guy in front of me. When I did, I decided he was going to be my running partner for the rest of the race. In his mid-thirties, this Korean dude was hauling. So I motioned to the guy in front of us and he got the hint: "let's pick him off." The last 5K was kind of a blur. Very painful. We ended up picking off 5-6 runners in the last 3K. I kinda felt bad for the guy because on the last bridge he motioned to his stomach but I didn't let him slow down. haha. I really needed him with me so he pushed through. On the last K I made a push for one more runner, got him, and realized I might be able to get the next guy too. I caught him with about 600 meters left but right when I came up to him he surged and I was mentally defeated. It was so depressing. It was like he was saving it. After the finish my running buddy ran over and gave me his business card. Don't know where he pulled that out of. But he was pretty cool. We couldn't really communicate, besides the little English he knew. 38:20. Not a great time, but considering I'm inexperienced in this distance, it leaves a lot of room for improvement.
On November 29th, I raced another 10K. That was just this last Sunday. It started and finished at Jamshil Olympic Stadium. Which is way cool because it was where Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson battled for Gold in the 100 meter dash in 1988. Warming up and stretching where they ran, and on the warm up track inside the gate was a really cool feeling. Anyways, this race felt remarkably better in terms of fitness and aerobic capacity. I ran almost exactly the same time as my first 10K, a low 38. I ran by myself for pretty much 7 of the 10 kilometers, which tells me I'm in better shape because last race I needed someone to pull me to clock that time. This race I did it by myself. It was cold and drizzly. It started to rain during the last 5K but I don't think it affected me much. I couldn't find my watch before the race so I had no idea THE WHOLE TIME how fast I was going or what kind of splits I was turning in. Not even at the 5K, which by the way was really unorganized and I ended up losing about 7 seconds. I did feel a slight second wind on the latter half of the race but it was short lived because I was in a lot of pain most of the race. I kept telling myself that during the race I was going to feel really crappy, and at that time I will need to speed up my turnover and get into a rhythm because at that time the pain of going 5:30 pace and 6:00 pace is virtually undetectable. So why not just make myself go faster? The last K was tough. I really had nothing left and was emotionally spent from being alone and not having the chance to pass anyone. Overall I am really happy with this race. The time, blah. I am learning a lot every race and I just need to take each race and use it to build on the next. I have a lot of new things I'm going to try out and we will see how it goes next race!
