Making friends and searching for fitness....

This has been a big week for meeting other foreigners. Last Saturday, we just happened to be wandering the streets on a rainy evening and passed another foreigner couple. We stooped and said hello and ended up going for a cup of tea and a chat. The next day we met up for lunch and got to know each other a bit better. They are a couple from the United States, but had been living (and met) in Spain for the past 8 years! As we talked we found we had quite a bit in common with regards to our goals with teaching abroad and our experience in Buyeo so far. It was quite relieving to hear that other people have had some of the same difficulties as us with regards to getting set up and settled here. We're excited to have met them and look forward to hanging out with them more often. The weekend was rainy so we stayed in Buyeo and made the most of it, walking when we could and getting some errands taken care of. This past Tuesday we met up with another bunch for dinner. Three are teachers the fourth is eh husband of one of the teachers. All very nice people. We had dinner at the buffet at the outlet mall and it was pretty decent. We got a lot of great info and tips for teaching and living in Buyeo and Korea. It's been a steep learning curve to date, but people like this make it heaps easier.

I (Brian) am finally in a place / routine where I can get up and have enough time for an hour long walk / jog / hike / run. I'm loving having the mountain right across from us. I step out our door and within a few minutes I'm up into the mountain. It's quiet and beautiful at 6:30AM. Just me and a handful of the ever so prominent 60+ crowd. They walk, stretch, do sit-ups and aerobics, it's awesome to see. Today I went for an hour, 40 minutes of which was in the mountain with lots of uphill running, jogging and power hiking. The last 20 minutes was back down through town, with a stop at the grocery store to pick up some soy milk for Julia. I managed 11k in the hour. Not bad considering the hills and technical trail on the mountain.  The fitness is coming back. We have the Spartan Beast (25 obstacles over 20km of running) June 13 and I have the Incheon  70.3 on July 5^th. I'll have to get out cycling soon! And Julia's main school in Buyeo supposedly has a pool that will open in June. I suspect it will be packed though.

The teaching is getting a bit easier, but we have good days and bad still. Sometimes it was our lesson or our delivery and other times it's because we aren't getting much help from our co-teacher. It's a tricky situation because we want to do a good job and have the support of our co-teachers, but we know how busy they are outside of our classes. I also start a Teachers Training class this Friday that will run from 3 – 5PM. I found out about it last week and will have to figure out what to do ASAP. After a class or two I'm sure it will be easy.

Redemption Run

Well today was the first race of 5 races in 5 weeks for Brian (and at least 2 in 5 weeks for Julia). The half marathon was at 8:00AM and Julia's 5k wasn't until 8:45AM, so we took separate cars. The race site isn't too far from our place, but parking was fairly limited, so we both left early just to be sure. I was up shortly after 5AM (the usual wake up time lately) and Julia was up just before 6AM.

My morning routine was pretty much as it normally is. I had my espresso and standard morning smoothie. This morning I also had 2 bananas and a serious mug of beet juice. Beet juice is a source of organic nitrates (not to be confused with those used as preservatives, which should be avoided). The theory (lots of evidence showing promise, but you know how these things go) is that it helps increase blood flow and oxygen delivery to muscle. Sure, why not. I like the earthiness taste of beet juice anyways, so no big deal. It's just alarming sometimes (especially when dehydrated also) when you're pee is a deep blood red. ANYWAYS. I had the beet juice and bananas and a little bit of cytomax. Got to the race site and parked with ~15 - 20 minutes of time to spare. Well, not really to 'spare' as we still needed to pick up our race kits, bib number, timing chip etc and affix to our person. Everything went off without a hitch and I got to the start with time to spare. Time to pretend I was warming up, or something.

There were only 25 or so people in this half marathon (more in the 11k and 5k, but still a small race) which was kind of neat! I got right up to the front and was actually the first person across the timing mats at the start, that was a first! Anyways, the first kilometer was pretty quick and there were 4 guys ahead of me. One of which I wasn't terribly worried about. He was actually out front, but I had a feeling he wasn't all that experienced and would gas (he did). After about 3k I was in 4th and right behind third. We stayed like that for about another 3k and then I passed him at an aid station and he hung on behind me. The course is two laps of 9k or so with a bit extra at the beginning and end to get it up to 21.1km. On the second lap, we started to catch and pass the back of the pack 11k runners. Nice to not be so lonely out there! At around 13k I realized that I was actually starting to distance myself from the guy behind me a bit and so just tried to hold that pace (~4:20 - 4:25/km). Around 15k it started to hurt and I had definitely slowed, but so did he. I looked back at around 17km and he was probably about a minute behind, so as much as it sucked, I just kept reminding myself of how much fast he'd have to run than me over the last 4, 3, 2 and then 1km. He never caught me. Right at the end there is a small out and back and I saw that I had 260m on him with about 1.5k to go. That was plenty. I took it easy and grinded up the final climb and congratulated some of the 11k folks coming towards the end of their race. I enjoyed the last 250m or so into the finish line. I actually REALLY enjoy these small races. Everyone gets their moment crossing the line, instead of just being another person in a procession. Julia was waiting for me at the finish and snapped some pics. Too bad we couldn't get any of her in action!

I finished in 1:34:16... good enough for 3rd overall and not awful considering all of the training I've done this week in my lead up to Tremblant 70.3. I actually ran a bit faster last Saturday on a 21.4k training run, but that was flat, cooler and I was able to get some calories in during.

Julia kicked butt too! 23:52 for her 5k and was 2nd female out of 36, 9th overall out of 72! Not bad on a hilly course. She'll easily go under 22 minutes this year. EASILY!


See Julia's Race Result on Sportstats

See Brian's Race Result on Sportstats

We got home and Julia left to go to her Greco Lean and Fit Workout! WHAT A MACHINE!