A poor idea, in the long run

I'm never doing that again.

Last spring, I found out that this year's Chuncheon Marathon would be on my birthday, Sunday, October 26, and decided on the spot that I had to run it. My first marathon, four years ago, was in Chuncheon, and another run there would nicely bookend the three Joongang Marathons (here in Seoul) I'd run since.

The Joongang course is very boring, but Chuncheon's is beautiful, albeit hilly. It winds around and across a lovely river shaped like a Rorshach blot, overlooked by lovely little mountains covered with fall foliage. I did my first marathon there in 2010, walking one of every four minutes, in five hours, 40 minutes. My three Joongangs, running the whole way of a flat course, were clustered right around five hours even, and I figured I could handle Chuncheon's hills in 5:15 or so.

The long runs in training went badly; the muscles above and below my left knee stiffened up after eight miles or so each time, and without my erstwhile training partners Lauren, Val, and Laura-Claire (who had all left the country), I didn't have the will to push through it for another six or eight or ten miles to complete the runs. I did, however, complete a test 20-miler three weeks before the marathon, so I talked myself into believing I'd be fine on the day. ("Take no prisoners!"- George Armstrong Custer)

I'd rejoined the Seoul Flyers running club mostly to be able to ride their bus out to Chuncheon, a couple of hours east of Seoul. My only worry was finding a cab at 4:30 a.m. to take me across the city to the bus, but one came along within a minute of my hitting the street. Riding 65 miles an hour on the darkened city streets was just about enough to wake me up.

When the Flyers set up camp at Chuncheon, the leader announced that everyone should be back on the bus at 3; if I finished in my self-predicted time, I'd make it by 2:40, despite starting the the last group, almost a half hour after the tiny, fast East Africans. (Seriously, guys, they have the size, build, and speed of whippets.)

It was a beautiful day for a run, and the first miles went off fine. But the hills got to me, the knee stiffened up right on schedule, and I had to walk most of the last half of the course. This caused a lot of anxiety, as I kept thinking "If I run the rest of the way, starting now, I'll be back before everyone is on the bus and wanting to get home" while just not having the energy. All the way, minute by minute, I saw fifty exhausted runners on the bus, wondering "Where the hell is that guy?"

It just went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on (squared). I had planned to carry my cellphone so I could take photos, but it made my shorts sag (what with the iPod and half-dozen energy gels in my pockets), so I'd left it behind and missed the "Where are you?" and "Call me!" texts from the Flyers' president at the finish line.

As I finally, finally, got near the end, people by the side of the road were applauding, which only made me feel worse; I imagine they were rooting for the plucky old man running his first marathon, but it was my fifth, and it was slooooooow and pathetic.

Then I was finally done, in six hours and seven minutes (cue sad-sack trombone) and I limped as fast as I could to get my (completely undeserved) medal and pick up my bag o' crap, and then halfway through the damn town, burdened as I was, to the most humiliating moment of all, boarding the bus and being applauded--sincerely, I think, but it felt sarcastic--by the impatient busful of runners.

I did my best to ooze into my seat and disappear.

The Flyers' tradition is to take the bus over to a traditional Korean restaurant after the marathon; Chuncheon is famous for its dakgalbi--spicy chicken ribs. When we got there, I went in, but the difficulty of finding a seat, the sheer impossibility of my standing up again after a horrible marathon and a half hour sitting cross-legged on the floor, and the fact that I'm a vegetarian and chicken ribs are not technically a vegetable made me decide to wait alone in the bus instead.

At least the street was empty, so I could change out of my soggy running gear on the bus. This was the first birthday I've ever had where being naked, alone,  on a tour bus was the highlight of the day.

The trip to Chuncheon had taken two hours; the trip back took five, thanks largely to some bozo who delayed the bus until the traffic was utterly clogged. Add another two hours to hobble up the stairs to my second-floor apartment... it was a long day.

I am registering today for a 10K run in April, then I'll probably do a half-marathon, but a full marathon is much, much longer than twice a half-marathon. My ego is finally past needing to say "I'm a marathoner" or feeling old because I don't do the full course anymore. I could; I don't want to.

I promised myself in 1970 I'd do a marathon one day; I've done five. But...

I'm never doing that again.

My late friend Steve

You think I'd learn, wouldn't you?

One of my longstanding bad habits (that is, mental malfunctions) is continually underestimating how long it takes me to get out of the house and go someplace. Today I paid for it, in frustration and embarrassment.

It's a gorgeous Easter Sunday, 70 degrees without a cloud in the sky (or, you know, anywhere else) although you wouldn't know it was Easter, aside from the church lady who handed me a packet of two hard-boiled eggs in the subway. (They weren't dyed, but there was a churchy message on the plastic.)

Anyway, today was the so-called Bundang Marathon, although there wasn't an actual marathon-length course. In the US South, every soft drink is called a Coke... here, every road race is a called a marathon, whatever its length, and today's "marathon" was a set of 5K, 10K, and half-marathon (21K) races.

I'd trained for a couple of months, with my friend Laura-Claire, to run the half. But as so often happens--and did I mention you'd think I'd learn?--I got there just minutes before the race and, after frantically stashing my bag with a Korean guy who looked trustworthy and dashing to the restroom (where I got precious little rest), I couldn't force my way through the thousands-strong mob of 5Kers and 10Kers to the half-marathoners up in front.

So, rather than slink home in self-imposed disgrace, I ran the 10K. The course started in the most beautiful park I know and mostly ran alongside the nearby stream. After 3K, I was pleased (and a little shocked) that I was running a six-minute-per-kilometer pace, about a minute per K faster than usual, and decided to try to beat an hour, which would be nearly ten minutes faster than my previous 10K, a few years ago.

And I woulda got away with it, too, if not for that meddling bathroom stop on the course. Still, 1:00:35 ain't bad for a broke-down, overweight sexagenarian. (Oh, calm down... the "sex" in that word just means 60.)

A bunch of my hashing friends also ran in the various races...

I guess I was late for the photo, too... shocker.

I couldn't find my bag, with my clothes and my wallet, after the run. I got busy panicking and walking around the big plaza without much hope that it was still around, but the man who'd said I could leave my bag corralled me at the other end of the plaza and handed it back; he'd been carrying it around with him for an hour.

Afterward, a bunch of us went to the start of the Southside hash, though I didn't do the trail because I was already limping. A couple of the guys and I had lunch at a Korean restaurant. I thought I'd communicated "no animals" to our waitress despite my minuscule Korean knowledge and her matching English skills, and I was having the most delicious noodle soup I've ever eaten, till I found a tentacle in it. Apparently I'd already eaten some chopped-up mussels, which I'd thought were mushrooms. It's that kind of day.

Still, I've been feeling leaden since the horrible ferry tragedy on Wednesday. Many public events have been canceled, and I'm grateful that the race wasn't, because an Easter morning with friends in the sun, in a gorgeous, sunny park and by a gorgeous, sunny stream, is exactly what I needed.

And I swear I'm not gonna run late for stuff anymore.

I mean it this time.

 No, really.

 See? Right on time for the photo after the race. Doing better already!

Me and Yu and K forty-two

Last month I ran my fourth marathon, my third consecutive Joongang International Marathon, from the Olympic Stadium down to the outskirts of Bundang (that is, the suburbs of the suburbs) and back. I had thought that last year's would be my last, till the Boston Marathon bombings prodded me into an irrational but definite sense that I needed to do another as a statement to... someone... that we runners won't be intimidated, a day in memory of the victims.

Maybe that wasn't reason enough; I ran my first marathon to keep a promise I'd made myself in high school, my second to break five hours, my third to no-kidding break five hours (as I'd missed by less than a minute). All through the grinding miles this summer (about 360 of them, but maybe you find 575 kilometers more impressive), I pushed and sweated and resented myself for committing to this and wondered what the hell was wrong with me. (That, however, would take a bit more than 360 miles to figure out.) And on the really long runs, my left leg would stiffen so that I could hardly bend it... if that happened in the race, it would be the Bus of Shame for me.

Getting out of bed on the morning of the marathon is a grim affair. The predawn hour, dressing and fretting, feels like anticipating a root canal, and on the taxi ride to the stadium, every speed bump (and there are many) makes the stomach contract just a little bit more. I felt like a chihuahua getting fastened into a bungee harness and looking down in dismay and perplexity. I had no idea why I was doing this.

In the shivery November morning at the stadium, I kept busy finding a men's room that didn't have a 20-minute queue, stashing my stuff in a bag and storing it, and dodging among the masses of energetic Koreans doing their stretches in front of the girl group dancing and blasting K-pop from monstrous speakers. Then it was time to line up on the street.

I had been regretting not having a running partner (Val, from last year's marathon, or Laura-Claire, from my training this year), but I got very lucky. Within a few miles, a Korean man a few years older than I spoke to me and we began to run together. His English was pretty decent, certainly years ahead of my Korean. I told him my name was Steve and he gave his family name, Yu. (Maybe he thought his full name would be too much for a foreigner, and maybe he was right.) We ran the whole rest of the marathon together. That, right there, is a strong reason to not give up.

Within another mile or so we were joined by another guy of about 40, whose English was good enough for the circumstances. He never gave me his name, but he talked about loving his job as a city bus driver, so I'll call him Ralph (as in Kramden). He was especially proud that he can say "hello" in a dozen languages; he likes to make his foreign passengers feel welcome. He's a sweet guy.

So Yu and Ralph and I shared the next dozen miles together, and somehow the scenery and the time went by. They only knew to say "Good job" to encourage a foreign runner, so I taught them the finer points of "Go get 'em" and "You got this." I expounded on the superiority of the F-word in English to its Korean equivalent. ("Shibal" just doesn't have that same satisfying percussive effect.) They taught me some useful Korean phrases that I, being me, forgot by the end of the race.

We ran the whole way near the pacesetters carrying big blue "5 Hour" balloons. I began to long for the turnaround point out in the countryside and had just persuaded myself that we must be near it, and was abashed when the "3 Hour" balloons went by on their way back. The turnaround just would... not... come.

My leg had been aching under the knee since about Mile 5, but it never got any worse. However, after we finally turned around, with about ten miles to go, both calves got tighter than snare drums. Ralph's hip began to pain him about that same time and before long he fell ten feet behind us. I turned around and asked, "Gwenchanayo?" (Are you okay?) He said "Neh" (Yes), but the next time I looked back, he was nowhere to be found.

When running for five hours, without the option of quitting, there really is nothing in the world but putting one sore foot in front of the other, forever. It's purgatory.

Yu and me, among the select 20,000 who got their photos on the official website.

Yu was patient as I had to walk the uphills and stop occasionally to stretch my calves, yet as we approached the finish he said, "If you are not here, I am not here" several times. He's very gracious; I don't believe him, as he's a far better athlete than I--he'd run the Chuncheon Marathon the week before--but it did my heart good nonetheless.

Finally we were approaching the stadium after 42 kilometers, and I was lifted by seeing my friends Laura-Claire and Lesley there to root for me, as well as my colleague Claudia and her husband Frank inside the stadium. Yu and I struggled around the track until we got to the homestretch and I said, "Let's go" and we picked it up through the finish line.

Then L-C, Claudia, Frank, and I took a cab to Butterfinger Pancakes (or, as I call it, "Heaven's Denny's") for a huge brunch and a long convo mostly about how wonderful I am. Not a bad Sunday, all in all.

At the finish line, Yu had said "If you are not here, I am not here" once again, we shook hands, and he walked off. That was nice, but here's why I'm leaning toward not doing a full marathon again: in my previous three, I got a little choked up, in relief or triumph or fatigue, I don't know which: just a tiny bit teary-eyed, as far as my manly manliness allowed. This time, it was over and I didn't feel much of anything. Just another thing on my list, another thing to do on a Sunday.

 How to make a Budweiser taste good: run for five hours first.

I may yet do another; I know that the training gives me structure, something to think about, and the kick in the butt I need to get out the door. (Since this year's race, I come home from school intending to run, but it's cold and windy and gray and I'm tired and I don't wanna and you can't make me.) But maybe I can get the same benefits from a half marathon... I could do one with L-C or Les...

I've done a full one at age 60; a little voice inside says that cutting back now would be giving in to getting older... but what's to look forward to? Running one every year, just a little slower than the year before? (This year's time was a minute and 45 seconds slower than last year's.) Who am I running them for, anyway? It's nice to impress my friends, but I'm not impressing myself so much, and for really serious runners, it's "just" a marathon, not an ultra or a triathlon.

Well, I'll figure it out eventually. For now, I have nice memories of me and Yu and K forty-two.

If he is not there, I am not there.

Cavemen snort

It's really nice when something you've been bumbling about with for a long while finally begins to click into place. This week, I've had that nice feeling with two aspects of my life here

The first is the Korean language. I've been in the RoK for nearly five years now; I learned hangul, the alphabet, within a few weeks, for which I take no credit--it's brilliantly designed, unlike ours, which kind of fell into place over hundreds of years, with sounds from a score of languages. (Try explaining to a Korean child why the c in center is pronounced utterly differently from the c in carrot or the one in cherry.) In Korean, 라 will always be la. (Or ra, since there's no difference betweeen l and r, and it sounds almost like n... but, however hard it is for us to pronounce, it's always the same.)

I learned some stock phrases within a few months; I can say "Excuse me" or "I'm sorry", and I could understand a Korean saying it, if any of them ever did. (Koreans are very warm and polite to people they consider to be in their social or business circle, respectively, not so much to "outsiders".)

But actually having a vague idea of how verbs are conjugated or how parts of a sentence go together? That's new. Say "syntax" and I would have thought you were talking about paying extra for cigarettes or liquor...

 ...nah, soju's nasty; drink maekju (beer).

Till now. I've been going to the weekly Korean class with Qinjie for a while, and I still feel like an idiot when I'm there... I'm slow to pick it up, and there's so very much to learn. I will probably never understand a fast-paced conversation on TV or between people near me on the street. But I'm beginning to see how the pieces fit: 집애가요 (jip eh ga yo)--"home"/grammar marker for "place"/present tense of "go"-- means "I'm going home," or, in context, "He's on his way home" or, with a rising inflection, "Are you going home?" And I can say "I'm going to the park" and "Are you coming home?" (Not that I have any use for that one.)

It's like, say, an anagram contest where finally, finally, you see that Ithaca spells A cat! Hi! or Seoul is the same as louse (no slur intended; I'm happy to live here), or Steve Cornman spells Cavemen Snort.


(Okay, it's not very much like that, but it does allow me to use Cavemen snort as my headline. And, as Captain Mal Reynolds on my second-favorite science fiction show, Firefly, said, "That's not nothin'.")

And now for something not completely different...

I began running 43 years ago, and have been running very regularly since 1999. When I read the delightful book Born to Run last year, it changed my outlook and technique. But it took till this week for the full message to come through.

Born to Run is anthropology, kinesthetics, topography, marketing study, and biography all at once, all wrapped in the fascinating story of a secret ultramarathon. It's about a hidden tribe in the Copper Canyons of Mexico whose members of all ages routinely run dozens of miles at a time, their feet protected only by homemade sandals made from discarded tires or old strips of leather.

 ...like this.

The first time I read it, it made me a convert to minimalist (that is, near-barefoot) running. Briefly: our bodies were designed by uncounted years of evolution to be runners; we survived for millennia by chasing prey, which (as quadrupeds only cool off by panting, and nothing can sprint and pant simultaneously) would eventually collapse from the heat, while we, able to cool off by sweating, kept going. We ran with our feet under our torsos, landing on the balls of our feet, using out bent knees to cushion the shock. But 40 years ago, with the development of padded running shoe with thick, built-up heels, we began running by sticking the front leg forward and landing on the heel, which left the knee unable to absorb the heavy impact. Thus: injuries.

So I done got me some flat, minimally padded shoes, just enough to protect from pebbles and broken glass...

 ...like this...

, and started running "barefoot". It feels more natural and more connected to the earth, and I no longer get injured, through up to 20 miles at a time of marathon training, a full marathon, all on hard surfaces, and all... those... hashes, on concrete and up and down the rocky hountain trails of Korea. All while hunting the elusive tofubeast.

I'm a convert. Once you go flat, you never go back.

But it was just this week, after my third reading of the book, that the rest of the lesson finally got through: the purpose of running is to run. It's being alive, experiencing the world. For all these years, as much as I've gotten from running, it's usually been a chore, something to control weight or reach a time goal or win a medal or feel virtuous about. Now I've started just being out and moving and feeling alive. It's being in the moment, as our Buddhist neighbors would say.

And yesterday at dusk, on an hour's run along the creek, out away from the city, the physical aspect came together after all this time. Without conscious effort, I found my feet rotating under me like a bicyclist's, with small, quick steps, pushing forward smoothly rather than moving up and down like pistons. I told my cross-country kids for years that every running motion that isn't straight forward (such as swinging the arms across the body or bouncing up and down) is a waste of energy, but this is the first time I've ever run so straight and so smoothly.

Don't get me wrong: I still move at a glacial pace by athletes' standards... the winner of last year's Joongang Marathon was in the air, headed back to Kenya, before I finished. But I cut a minute per mile off my usual pace and felt fresher. And smoother and lighter and... well, gooder.

Okay, I've gone on and on and on. So I'll make the conclusion short and sweet. It's nice to see at last that life doesn't always have to be such a struggle. Let the cavemen snort; I don't care.

Once more into the breach

It was too much.

In my planning period, at the start of the school day on Tuesday, I put my head on my desk and tears came to my eyes. I felt myself on the verge of weeping; I'd be no good for the next class. So I went to talk to Kate, our school therapist, and got myself back together. But the sadness lingers.

First, on Thursday evening, our student Jaesung (Louis) was hit by a car and killed. He was such a sweet kid, friendly and cheerful and quiet. He was a wonderful guitarist. On Friday morning, the school canceled our amusement-park field trip and went to a meeting room at the hospital, where waiting in the long, long line in the hallway was so hard, listening to the sounds of grief from the next room. On Saturday morning, according to custom, on the way to the funeral, they stopped at the places important in his life for one last goodbye. Many of us gathered in the school library to lay flowers in front of his portrait and listen to remembrances. On Monday, the school put up a bulletin board for his friends and teachers to post their memories and messages to Louis.

And then, on awakening on Tuesday, I turned on my computer to the headline MARATHON HORROR.

You can't quantify shock and sorrow; was September 11 a thousand times worse because a thousand times as many innocent people died? What about Sandy Hook, where all those pure, little kids died? I only know that this one, the Boston Marathon bombing, was personal to me.

Running is such a positive, life-affirming activity; it's all about self-discovery and breaking barriers and believing we can do better and be better. I've been running on-and-off (mostly off) since 1970, regularly since 1999, and it's changed who I think I am. It's changed who I am. I think of all the miles I've put in, the hundreds of thousands of miles those marathoners in Boston put in, the wonderful kids I coached in cross country, the lovely people who came out in Boston to cheer on strangers and show love and pride in their family members...

It was too much.

Boston's the Holy Grail for runners, the World Series, the Oscars. It's far beyond the abilities of a poor schlumpf like me to ever run fast enough to qualify for it. To the Church of Running, it's the Vatican and Mecca rolled into one.

As I wrote on this blog in November, I'd decided my days of running the full marathon were probably through. Training that much, through the Seoul summer, is not fun and the race itself is an ordeal.

Nobody who was in Boston even knows I exist, except for my hashing friend Sarah, who ran the race and, afterward, was standing in front of this Starbucks, but left a few minutes before the explosion. (She is fine, thank goodness.)

(Sarah's amazing blog about Boston is at 

http://travelfitnessandlove.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/boston-a-lonely-runners-experience/).

None of the victims will know or care if I run another marathon. It won't help them in any way. In the end, nobody will care but me.

What I'm about to say makes no logical sense at all. But I can't help it:

I need to run a marathon this fall. For Boston.

Chuncheon, 2010; I was a little younger and the world was a little purer.

The road goes ever on and on

Two years ago, in the town of Chuncheon, I ran my first marathon, in five hours, 40 minutes. Last year, I ran the Joongang Marathon here in Seoul, in five hours, 58 seconds. If I'd met my goal (five hours) then, I might have had a lot more free time in the summer and fall of this year. But that 58 seconds haunted me and, by the night of the 2011 Joongang, I knew I'd have to do it again this year.

I only had one goal: a "4" in the hours column; 4:59:59 would do just fine.

This year's training was a lot more pleasant than that of the last two years, as Valerie, the wife of one of our social studies teachers, agreed to be be my training and racing partner. As Val has Ken and their five-year-old son, Maddox, and a life, she wasn't always able to do the Sunday long runs with me. But we did the long runs together more often than not, including the 20-miler three weeks before the race.

We ran along the Yangjae Cheon (stream) from Gwacheon City in the southwest to the Han River in central Seoul, and the phrase "slowly but surely" was never more apt. One week, we were supposed to do 16 miles and both gave out in 12. The 20-miler was smooth and pleasant. When you go out to run, you never know what kind of day you're going to have.

The hours surely go by more pleasantly with a running partner, but more than that, I really value the conversations I've had with Val. She's down-to-earth and frank and funny and we share a lot of political and social views. Best of all, she sometimes made me realize that maybe I shouldn't believe everything I think. For example, I'd say that Koreans have no sense of personal space, and she'd say, it's a big city... have you been to New York? (After much consideration, I've come to the conclusion, yeah but...)

She brought me back to the moment many times, as I'd obsess over meeting the time goal in the training plan, obsessively doing the math in my head: we've done 6 1/2 miles in 74:40... let's see, that's the same as 13 miles in 149:20, that's 149.33 minutes, divided by 13 is... ah, heck. It's um... I know I drove her crazy sometimes. (I drive myself crazy frequently, and I'm not sure I ever drive all the way back.)

Anyway, one of the great takeaways from this marathon season is having Val as a friend. She (like Ken) is good people, as they say down south. I introduced her to the hash, which she took to like a duck to Perrier, and she fast became one of the pack's favorites. (She's one of the people who pushed the sheet cake in my face at my EM run, as seen in my previous post.)

Another thing that really helped me be in the moment was the death of my GPS watch. It just stopped holding a charge, six weeks before the big day. I found a German GPS watch at the running store not far from my place. (From Garmin to German...) My new watch measures distance traveled in feet (feet!), which is utterly useless, but once I gave in and switched to metric, it was a dream. I can set the display to show any arrangement of data I like, and there's a setting for average pace, so I could just make sure to keep at 6:52, or 7:11, or whatever per kilometer and otherwise forget it.

Anyway, the summer miles were brutal, even starting at 6 a.m. The fall brought some relief just as the runs were getting longer and longer. And then, finally, it was M-Day.

Fifteen thousand-plus runners and a whole bunch of balloons this year.

 I can't tell you too much about the actual marathon; as with a coast-to-coast car trip or, I suppose, childbirth, when it's over the mind blocks out a lot of the tedium and pain. Val was having intestinal issues and had to search out bathrooms several times, but we ran together for the first half or so of the race, then she caught me up, then I lost her again. I didn't see her for the last twelve miles. She finished ten or twelve minutes behind me. Everything considered, her accomplishment was greater than mine.

Our time running together was 'way better than running alone. Also, for once, the weather cooperated. In Chuncheon two years ago, it was much, much too hot, freakishly so for the time of year. Last year, the sky opened up for the first couple of hours of the race and it was impossible to get any wetter. This year, it was really windy, but otherwise the conditions were perfect, 50 degrees or so and overcast. It started spitting tiny raindrops for a bit just before the finish and I though we might get a real storm. But we didn't.

I'm very grateful to Jin, our school's executive secretary, who came out to the 10-K mark with Gatorade and food bars for Val and me, and to Mr. Park, my boss, who showed up at several spots to encourage us and to take video.

The last dozen miles, running north by myself, were purgatory. Everything, I mean everything (well, almost), below the waist hurt. My hips were screaming, my knees were whimpering, my calves were crying out (yeah, it was damned noisy out there). Because I are a genius, I'd left the ibuprofen with Val. I'd also left my iPod with my stored gear, so I didn't have P!nk and Joan Jett to pull me through. And the road just went on and on and...

I thought I was on track to beat five hours, but at one point I'd accidentally stopped my watch (for ten seconds? Ten minutes? I couldn't be sure.) So I didn't know.

And then, in the last few miles, the backs of my thighs seized up repeatedly, one at a time, to the point I couldn't have walked another dozen steps. I stopped six times in all, three for each leg, to stretch and employ colorful vocabulary. One time, a guy saw me and handed me an energy drink that turned out to be almost completely honey, so just to add to the fun, I was sweaty, dirty, swearing, and sticky.

But finally the Olympic Stadium was in sight. Two small groups of hashers were waiting just outside the stadium to cheer us on. I'm deeply grateful; it's so generous for them to take time out of their weekend and travel to the stadium just to see us go by for a few seconds. It gave me a big lift, and I needed it.

And then it was through the tunnel and around the track and somehow I pushed and pushed and crossed the line with the timer saying 5:05. I was pretty sure we hadn't actually crossed the starting line for around ten minutes after the gun went off, but I felt a lot better a little later in the day when I got a text with my official time:

4:54:08.

Our art teacher Amber and her husband Kris were there for us, as were Ken and Maddox and a couple of their friends. I got to cheer Val all the way around the track--my voice, when I want it to, can fill up a 50,000 seat stadium--and we all exchanged hugs and smiles, Val and I picked up our medals, and we left. I was hobbling like a 90-year-old.

I was feeling pretty high emotionally and didn't want to go home to an empty apartment, so I suggested the Val, Ken, Maddox and I go to Butterfinger Pancakes in Gangnam for a little celebratory carbo-loading. When we got there, we found a 40-minute waiting line, so we settled for a little Italian place called Le Bois (French for "The Forest"; go figure.) It was wonderful, with excellent pasta and unlimited pizza (!) on the side, and Ken and I ate and ate and ate and all was right with the world.

I think this was probably my last full marathon. No matter how hard I train, I'll never get down under another touchstone such as 4:30, and until you've done it, you can have no idea what a slog training for the marathon, and the interminable race itself, can be. The only reason I can think of to do one next year is to say I did one at age 60, and that doesn't seem reason enough. A part of my ego says that no longer doing the full marathons would mean I'm getting old, but I know that's stupid. I think 2013 will be the year of half marathons and 10K's.

This is my medal. I think it's platinum.

I've been a bit at loose ends this week, without the self-imposed discipline of training and without cross country in school, which has ended for the winter. And without my obsessive checking of the election polls (which, incidentally, hooray!) But I'm good. I'm proud. I done good. Val done good. And that pizza done me real good.

St. Pat's and expats

We've just begun our week-long spring break. Huzzah! I actually kicked my break off a little early by helping chaperone a history-class trip to the National Museum on Friday afternoon. I'd been there once before, and felt the way I often do at museums: awed and engrossed until, say, the hundredth clay pot, then eager for the coffee shop. Unfortunately, I got assigned the group of kids whose docent was lecturing in Korean. But it was cool, especially this 14th-century crown-and-belt set. I'm gonna try to get one to wear in class.

 "Respect mah authoriteh!"

Yesterday, Saturday, was a more full than a Triple-Stuft Oreo. It was St. Pat's Day in Korea (well, everywhere, really), and the weather was gorgeous-- 60 Fahrenheit and sunny. I attended my 73rd Yongsan Kimchi hash in the 17 months since I started, and it was great, five miles of running through back alleys and neighborhood streets

The run was at Sindorim Station, in a very ritzy area of town I'd never been in before. After the run and the circle, a bunch of us walked a short way to the amphitheater just outside the brand-new subterranean D-Cube mall. It seemed that every expat in Korea was there, and a bunch of locals too, for the annual St. Pat's Festival.

 A bunch of hashers and a bunch of normals. 

I'm in the picture, if you want to play Where's Wald O'.

There were green shirts and green balloons and green stew. (Okay, the stew was not green--there wasn't anything green in it, just shades of brown--so I couldn't eat it.) There may have been some beer on the premises. There was Roveresque and Clannadesque music. There was an MC MCing in Gaelic-accented English and Gaelic-accented Korean. There was a lot of step-dancing-- and I have to say Korean women doing Riverdance are quite attractive. I took a video with my phone, but Windows doesn't support the file type, so sadly you'll have to settle for a still. That's a shame... the little girl in green was twirling and high-stepping and having the best time of anybody in East Asia. I'm surprised she's not moving in this still picture, like a Harry Potter photo.

You could give me Red Bull through an IV tube while jolting me with a thousand volts and I would never feel as joyous and present as the little green girl. But it was still one of those moments, like the hountain hike I wrote about recently, that just felt alive. It was just good to be there, basking in the energy and the... well, aliveness. I don't know a better word. I don't live out "Be Here Now" often enough, but I Was There Then.

And then it was time for the Seoul Hash House Harriers. That's the oldest hash in Korea, and the only one in the area I'd never attended. It's male-only, and I don't like excluding people. Also, between the physical toll of hashing twice in a day and not wanting to take up a whole day when I have school prep and grading to do, it just never seemed wise.

But twice a year they allow women at their hash, and this was one of those days. And, with the whole week off, I couldn't plead lack of time, even to myself. And it started and ended at the same spot as the morning's YK hash. So off we went, boys and girls together, me and Mamie O'Rourke, though this time I walked with a bunch of others.

It was getting chillier, and after four miles or so, the six of us who were still together decided  to taxi back to the start. We flagged down a cab, and the driver insisted we all get in, even though it's a hard-and-fast rule in Seoul that cabs only carry up to four passengers.

I've never attended clown college, but now I've taken Clown Car 101. In your standard-issue Hyundai, there were two women in the front seat, and two other guys-- two other big guys, each six-foot-two vertically and two-foot-six horizontally, a woman, and little me, squished like a Nerf ball against the door. When I finally got out, I made a vague wheezing accordion noise, like Wile E. after he's fallen off a cliff.

But then it was time for the Seoul Hash circle, which goes on forever, with each hasher expected to take a turn telling a joke or singing a song. We even had three women from Tokyo, in for the weekend to run the Seoul Marathon this morning. For all I've posted about being so much older than the other hashers, that isn't true at Seoul H3; there were several around my age, including one friendly American who's been living here for 34 years. I'd thought I was a veteran waegook with three and a half.

At the SH3 circle. This is my favorite recent photo of me, though it certainly shows my age.

As Indy said, "It ain't the years, honey, it's the mileage."

Finally I limped home, 11 hours to the minute from when I left. This morning, my calves were taut and tight and it took awhile to hobble to the coffeemaker, but it was worth it.

It was a good day. O'Really.

Hear and now

On Friday I missed a huge foreign-school conference in Incheon that everyone else from school attended. I felt guilty; it was an important series of meetings I could have benefited from. However, the steroids for my ear problem ran out the night before, I had an appointment for a follow-up visit, and I wasn't going to risk my hearing by waiting two weeks for the next opening.

I'll spare you the litany of frustrations that followed "Please sit in hallway" when I checked in for my hearing test. It's enough to say I waited an hour and a half because the signs were in Korean and nobody tried to help me. Finally I went down to the first floor and got an elderly volunteer from the International Medicine office to come up and translate for me.

My hearing test showed a mild-to-moderate loss of hearing on the higher frequencies in my left ear, probably permanent. Dr. Park said they couldn't do a different hearing test, which would have helped determine if it's middle-ear or inner-ear damage, because I don't speak Korean. I don't know why that's relevant--does the test involve differentiating between similar Korean words?--and it didn't seem worth pursuing, as it wouldn't make any difference.

I also wasn't clear on whether the plugging-up of my ear, which the steroids fixed, was the cause of the hearing loss, a result, or completely coincidental. Once again, it didn't seem worth pursuing.

As to the high-pitched ringing that comes and goes, Dr. Park had a two-word piece of advice: "Avoid silence." Thanks, Doc.

She also said that the hearing loss isn't unusual "for someone (my) age". Thanks a lot, Doc. I feel much better.

Me.

And that, I guess, is what I want to write about here. I've posted before that, overall, I think I've gained more than I've lost by getting older, and I'll stand by that. (At least while I can still stand.) But I've been feeling run-down a lot lately, taking naps in lieu of runs after school, and getting up for a pit stop two or three times every night. On one hash I actually had to ask my buddy Tirty-tree, whose stamina is generally so much less than mine, to walk awhile instead of running. And I don't think I'm going to make that half-marathon I told myself I was going to run this spring.

Incidentally, though I may be the oldest hasher in Korea, I've figured out that it isn't because hashing is a young person's game. I look at photos from hash kennels around the world and there are lots of geezers. It's just that my job is so unusual; there are very few American-style high schools here, and thus very few professional foreign teachers, as opposed to people who teach ESL at hagwons. That is almost entirely a job for 20-somethings, and so is the US military, and each of those demographics supplies half of our hashers.

Anyroad (I love that Britishism, and it seems appropriate to me as a runner), I'm hoping that a lot of my slump is because winter has sapped my drive and energy. We marathoners (have I ever told you I've run *two* marathons? Not one, two! As in 52 miles, 770 yards of sheer guts and the Triumph of the Human Spirit [cue trumpets]? And how you should be impressed by my indomitability? Oh, I have. Never mind) talk about "hitting the wall", that point, usually around the 20-mile mark, where there's just no gas left in the tank. I'm being melodramatic--I think--but I hope to heaven that, at age 58, I'm not hitting the wall in my life. I would hate that.

And, if I hit it head-first, I might damage my good ear. Then again, it might smooth out my forehead.

So there's that.

Today and the rest of my life

I just got back home and I want to get this down before the feeling fades.

I feel so alive, you guys. It's spring again today, temps in the mid-fifties, and sunny. I'm not fooling myself; I'm sure we'll have more cold and nasty stuff before the real spring, the one with the cherry blossoms, arrives. But right now it's gorgeous.

The hash this morning was a lot of fun, though it criss-crossed some earlier chalk marks and everybody got lost and either (raising hand sheepishly) faked the way back to the start or insisted on going back and finding the real trail and running the whole thing, which entailed... well, let's say it was a longer way than to Tipperary. But it was beautiful, good company, gorgeous weather, a lot of fun.

My plan, as I posted here, was to go on down to Songtan for the Osan Bulgogi hash, but we waited so long for our Yongsan Kimchi after-run circle to start, and it went on so long, that we clearly weren't going to make it down for the actual run. A bunch of us took two cabs to Nambu Bus Terminal, which is most of the way back from the YK location to my place, and when we got there, I decided I just couldn't justify the time and money investment to go all the way to Songtan. There would be a couple of hours of revelry that I'd have to leave early anyway to get home at a halfway-reasonable hour.

So, I said my excuse-mes and decided to walk the two miles home. The most direct way was up. I still had a lot of energy and decided I was going to go over, not around, the hountain.

***ATTENTION PLEASE: the big bumps in the ground here are called san, mountain, but most of them aren't any bigger then East, South, or West Hill in Ithaca. Too big to be a hill, too small for a mountain: hereafter, the proprietor of this blog is calling them hountains.***

Well, this one was a big hountain. My GPS watch pointed the way and when I got high enough I could see the LG Electronics building, the Hyundai and Kia headquarters, and the Hi-Brand (E-Mart) building that define my neighborhood. A hard climb, but I've had worse... but then... but then.

A directional sign pointed the way up to "SUBANG TOWER 500 M". I thought, hey, a quarter mile to a tower I've never heard of, only a bit over a mile from my place? This I gotta see! So after about 300 meters of uphill struggle, I found another sign, pointing to the right, "SUBANG TOWER 400 M". And then, 300 meters later (and higher) "SUBANG TOWER 300 M".

And finally I got to Subang Tower, which was not, as you might think, a tower. It was this:

I'm not quite sure what its purpose is, though often Koreans build cairns as memorials. I saw a couple of people walk around the pile, clockwise, methodically, so it may be a meditation aid or have spiritual significance.

I'm not sure how high Subang Tower is, but it's higher than the 70-story apartment building next to the Yangjae Cheon. So there was a view:

The green Frisbee-roof in the foreground is the Seoul Arts Center; I could also make out the Marriott Hotel, which is across the street from St. Mary's Hospital, the Han and a couple of bridges across it, and way off to the north, Namsan and Seoul Tower (which, contrary to what you have been led to expect, is a tower.)

And that's part of what made me feel so alive: the sense that this enormous city is mine. I've walked so much and run so much of it and ridden the trains under the places in between, it belongs to me now. We hashed through the wine festival, and the school saw Wyeths and Warhols, at the Arts Center; I visited the Buddhist temple just above it; I get my meds at St. Mary's; I've walked and run over the Han; and I've hashed many times and hiked once, on our first date, with Kyung, on Namsan. It's not my hometown, but it's my home.

And best of all, there are these peaceful trails up and over these hountains, all around and through the second-most-populous metro area on the planet.

But the best thing of all today came as I was descending the south slope toward home. Coming up, there was a man with three little kids, all five years old or not much more. The little boy broke out in a big grin and called, in English, "What's your name?" I said, "My name's Steve. What's your name?" He said, very proudly, "My name is Bak Jae Sung." I answered, "Hello, Bak Jae Sung!" and he smiled and smiled. The two little girls waved shyly to me and, when I high-fived them, giggled. Dad beamed. And I smiled all the way down the slope, which was so steep and rock-strewn that it needed every inch of the guide ropes strung up alongside.

When I got home, this guy was happy to see me:

I'm very fond of Tug, but he wouldn't voluntarily leave this apartment for any reason whatsoever, and I missed the wonderful dogs I've had in my life. Booker, Wylie, and Bodhi: not one of them would have missed this walk for the world and I wish any one of them, or as long as I'm thinking magically, all of them, had been with me.

I want to remember this feeling I have when I'm hip-deep in laundry and grading and the fifteenth TV showing of Iron Man 2 in a month.

It's nice to be alive, not just breathing, once in awhile. I will try it more often.

Hashing and hearing

Yesterday, Thursday, was a bee-yoo-ti-ful day. It was Independence Movement Day  here, a national holiday commemorating the initial uprising of the Korean people against their Japanese occupiers. Our school has a four-day weekend, and nearly all schools and hagwons were closed, which means one thing in the tight-knit hasher world here: time for the ESL Hash.

We met at noon at Triangle Park, at the base of Seoul's most prominent mountain, Namsan, near the foreign-friendliest neighborhoods in Korea, Itaewon and Haebongchan. The weather was incredibly gorgeous, in the mid-fifties and sunny, and I had the kind of Spring Fever that I never got living in North Florida. Hashing every week through the winter here can be a real grind, and it was wonderful to wear shorts again! If anything, I was overdressed, with two shirts on.

We scrambled up a gully toward Seoul Tower. It was hard work and for a while I wished I'd worn warm-up pants after all; who knew bushes were so scratchy? The long jog down on the road was gorgeous, and we would have had an incredible view of most of Seoul if the air had been clear. (This year's clean air in Seoul is scheduled from 5 to 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 8.) But, oh, the sun and the breeze. People in the American South can have no idea of the feeling of the first spring day.

After the hash, Tirty, VVD, Encyclo, WOPS, T3 and I walked to the Wolfhound Pub in Itaewon for brunch, beers, chat, and drinking games. I stayed too long and ate too much. (I wasn't going to order the apple crumble, but, you know, somebody else did, so I had to.) I didn't get home till dinnertime, at which point I fell, exhausted, into my bed for a nap.

 

 Apropos of nothing, I'm rockin' a goatee now. 

I may look distinguished; I may look like a billy goat. Your call.

Today was not nearly as bee-you-ti-ful. It was cool and spitting rain most of the day, and it was time to head to the hospital. I've had a stuffed-up left ear, periodically with a loud whining noise, for almost two weeks. (It's ringing now; if I hooked up my webcam, you could hear it.) It's very wearing and even more bothersome, especially when I have to ask my students to repeat what they said, and it hasn't done a very good job of going away.

I go to Dr. Choi at Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, a branch of the Catholic University of Korea, for my BP meds; with nobody in the school office today to phone them on my behalf, I thought the best thing was just to head over there (45 minutes by foot, bus, and subway) and at least make an appointment.

St. Mary's has some doctors who speak good English and a small International Medicine office to help foreigners. I went there first because the receptionists in Family Medicine, Dr. Choi's department, don't speak it very well. The woman in IM got me an appointment with Dr. Choi ten minutes later, which is amazing, and the doctor suggested I have tinnitus and wrote me a referral to otology.

Incidentally, when you're waiting for your appointment, a monitor shows your name and your place in line; they black out the last syllable of your name to protect your privacy. So you will see (in hangeul letters, of course): 1) Bak Ji *  2) Geem Yeon *  3) Kor Maen Seu Tee Beun *. I am so relieved that the 20 Koreans in the waiting room might have thought it was some other Seuteebeun Kormaen who was having health problems.

She re-upped my prescription for BP meds; you take your sheet to a desk, wait, pay for the visit, feed the paper they give you into an ATM-like machine, then take that sheet to one of the dozen yakguk (pharmacies) within a block of the hospital. All in all, it took five minutes for my appointment and 30 to get the drugs. This was the first time today for that, but not the last.

I wandered over to the Central City underground mall to kill time, then went back to the hospital and up to the third floor, where I was late because the signs were in Korean and the helpful lady in International Medicine sent me to the northwest corner (obstetrics)-- where I got an odd look from the receptionist when I came in for my appointment-- rather that the southeast corner.

Finally I got it straightened away, by stopping in another department, pointing to my ear, and looking pitiful. I may or may not have said "ow". Anyway, after navigating the linguistic maze in otology, I eventually got in to see Dr. Park. (As an aside, Korea is extremely backward when it comes to women's rights and role in society, but both Dr. Choi and Dr. Park are women. I try to do my part.)

She shoved a camera-probe in my ear and showed me the problem: my ear canal looks like what Tim Robbing crawled through to escape Shawshank Prison. She cleaned it out-- there is no truth to the rumor that she shone her light in one ear and it came out the other side of my head-- and told me it was just fluid in the ear, with some inflammation. I told her Dr. Choi had suggested tinnitus, but she wouldn't hear of it. (Har har!) The tinnitus is brought on by the primary problem.

So she gave me another prescription, for nasal spray and steroid pills, of which I must take 11 a day for the next week, and an appointment for a follow-up. She also told me to hold my nose tight, puff out my cheeks, and blow as hard as I can, ten times a day. She may or may not have been funnin' me, but I'm gonna do it.

I  ran the linguistic gauntlet again and went back to the yakguk, got my drugs, and finally, finally, tired and grumpy, headed down into the subway--where the turnstile refused to take my T-Money card. So I went to the info booth, which was empty. So I waited. Then I went back up to the street, walked a half-mile to another entrance (the Express Bus Terminal Station is laid out with its three subway platforms forming a huge "U") and went to that info booth, which was empty. Finally I found the station office, and a guy helped me out.

So I rode back, walked the half-mile home from the stop, and collapsed onto my bed for a nap again. When I woke up, it was dark out. I don't know if it's the ear thing or what, but I'm just tired all the time lately. I guess I'm not 55 anymore.


Tomorrow will be an exhausting day. I never miss my Yongsan Kimchi hash (71 times in 14 months, baby!) I almost never go down to Songtan, an hour south of Seoul, as I'm always sore and exhausted when I get back, 11 hours after I left. But tomorrow is the on-out (final hash) of one of our core people and I can't miss it. Also, they've kidnapped Dick, YK's mascot, and are corrupting his morals, and we have to get him back.

The fiends posted this on Facebook, with the caption "Dick payin strippers".

Tug had better not be on the bed the moment I walk back in the door, or he's gonna get collapsed on.

"...and, doggone it, people like me."

You know that stuff I wrote two entries ago, "I'm not alone"? Yeah, well, never mind. I was only kiddin'.

Seems I'm a ramblin' guy again; Kyung and I are off. I won't pretend I'm not disappointed, but I'm fine. Maybe I am alone, but 2011 was still a success because I learned I don't have to be alone.

Anyway, we're three weeks into our four-and-a-half-week winter break (necessitated by Korea's biggest holiday, Seollal-- Lunar New Year-- coming so soon after our usual two-week break). My colleagues are beginning to trickle back from their excursions to such strange, exotic locations as Vietnam and California, but most won't be back for another week.

I've been keeping busy writing, hiking, milling on the tread at the gym (shut up, I'm an English teacher), going to a movie, soaking in hot tubs, and hashing. During the school year, the Saturday morning Yongsan Kimchi hash is about all I can commit the time to each weekend. Now that I'm on vacation, though, I'm hitting both YK and Southside HHH on Sundays. It's a delicate balance, trying to keep the January cold out without being so bundled up I sweat through all those layers while running. Usually I fail.

Yesterday's YK hash, going all the way up and over three mountains while covering six miles in two hours, was epic, but it was last week's Southside that I'll really remember. We clambered over and between and around boulders all the way to the top of a mountain so high that even the traffic sounds of this metro area of 22 million completely faded away.

Halfway up: Headshot, Burt Reynolds, Mr. Blister, some guy, 

Dead Porno Society, Corndog Millionaire.

Top of the World, Ma! (The escalator was out of order.)

The long, long way down was enchanting, with a beautiful little stream frozen solid all the way down through the silent woods. Maybe the best thing about Seoul is that spotted all through this huge city there are the hills and mountains, so natural, so peaceful, so quiet.

But in case one is ever tempted to forget that this is still Korea, near the top of the mountain is a bunker, built after the war, that's used by the army to train their men how to watch out for invaders from the north.

Still, it was a lovely day, and the hash means so much to me in terms of conditioning, friendship, and self-esteem.

And you know, though it seems improper to say it... friends and acquaintances tell me it's impressive that someone my age (58, if you're keeping score at home) has run over 80 hashes, and completed two marathons, in 15 months. And I always go, aw shucks, tweren't nothin'. But you know... it is impressive. I rock. In some ways.

And now for something completely different.

When I was new in Korea, every day brought something funny, or sad, or odd enough to want to blog about. After a couple of years, though, I stopped noticing as much, or caring as much to post it. And there is a lot of funky stuff here. For example: 

-The underground shopping malls have so many rotundas and stairs and corridors branching off in all directions that they were apparently built by gophers with architectural degrees.And then there's inexplicable stuff like this:

-One of the moms in the English club I emcee at school gave me a Christmas present: a shocking-pink bow tie with gold filigree. (She knows me so well.)

-There are always so many salespeople standing around in stores that you can't twitch without having someone suggesting stuff you should buy, but for Seollal they're mostly decked out in lovely, traditional hanbok outfits. And you can't find half the stuff in its usual place because of all the gift packs on display, including Korea's favorite holiday delicacy:

-Close your eyes, delicate readers: as written in Korean characters, hope and hof (beer hall) are spelled identically; so are rub and love; so are park and fuck. (It's important to remember the difference in a no-parking zone.)

-There is actually in Korea a "free" cat who cost $1200 at the vet's due to nasty plumbing problems, an eye infection, and fluid in the lungs. Unfortunately, he lives with me.

If he wants legs, too, they're coming out of his allowance.

...and so, as Nick Carraway said, I beat on against the current, and survive the winter, and occasionally remind myself that, though I may be thoroughly single again, doggone it, people like me.

Eighteen thousand fifty-eight seconds

All the omens were bad for my Joongang Marathon on Sunday, November 6. I hesitated to enter, to begin with. I overtrained (often running six days a week, including regular training runs, hashes, and the school cross-country club) and hurt my knee, so that I had to take two weeks off from training, including the two longest runs. I made a radical change, from traditional running shoes to "barefoot" shoes, in the middle of the training period. And I lost two of the 17 pounds I'd planned to take off. And put them back on as I carbo-loaded in the last few days before the race.

And on Sunday, Marathon Day, it rained. A lot. Not Monday. Not Tuesday. Not Wednesday or Thursday, Friday or Saturday. Not Monday, Part II, not... well, you know. I didn't want to go and didn't know if I could finish: my best projected time might keep me from being picked up for blocking traffic.

And yet it all worked out. I give myself an "A". Not an "A+", because my goal was to break five hours and it took me five hours and 58 seconds. But my other goal, after having run three minutes/walked one minute for the entirety of the Chuncheon Marathon a year ago, was to run pretty much the whole way. And I did that. And took 39-plus minutes off my PR. So I feel pretty damn good.

I did almost everything right during the race; I fueled well, BodyGlided liberally to prevent chafing of the Personals, carried water till it was obvious I wouldn't need it (and dropped my hydration belt off), had a devoted pit crew on the course, timed myself very carefully... I had my pace down exactly, and kept with it, to finish in 4:58. Except that that didn't account for the fact that a marathon course is measured by the shortest possible distance around curves, which one can't always run with 21,000 other people in the way. And then there were those trips behind the bushes... you've heard of answering the call of nature? Yeah, well, Nature doesn't call me; she stalks me. According to my GPS watch, I ran exactly a quarter-mile farther than the official distance.

I could have foregone the food bar I ate while walking, four miles from the end. I could have skipped that one last trip to the little boys' bush. Either one would have saved me a minute... ah, well.

It started to rain as soon as I left home before the race, and kept it up most of the morning, intensifying a half-hour or so into the run, and very soon I just couldn't get any wetter. And being wet, I was absolutely chilled by the cool, breezy day. For five hours. And even once it stopped raining, there was just no way to avoid stepping in cold puddles. When I finally got home, my toes looked like white raisins.

Toward the end, my knees weren't bending real good. If there had been a string in the street, I'd've tripped on it. (I did, however, win the wet t-shirt contest.)

I got really lucky, though... a few miles in, I met a fellow American named Kyle, who was running his first marathon. I coached him a little, we shared energy gels and ibuprofen, and we encouraged each other for the next 20 miles or so, until finally he pulled ahead, finishing ahead of me by a minute. But having company made all the difference in the world to both of us, as neither of us wanted to quit and let the other person down. And then, though the Marathon "scoop up the slowpokes" Bus driver suggested we get on board, we didn't-- we were just too close to the end to even consider stopping.

I owe a debt of thanks to my hashing friends LesBalls (thanks for the photos), Countess, and Choopa for coming into the city to cheer me at the finish, and an enormous debt to our school principal Ron and his wife Jill, for being there, both going out (in the rain) and coming back, with my ditty bag of shoes, socks, shirt, water, energy gels, and food bars. And to Mr. Park, our boss, who kept popping up during the route to take pictures and cheer me on. (And give me a warm, dry ride home afterward.) Practically the best take-away from the whole experience is the knowledge that all these people sacrificed a large chunk of their weekends because they care about me.

My dear friend Shawn (Countess) was proud of me. Me, too.

By the way, I've mentioned it before, but now I'm a total drink-the-Kool-Aid convert to barefoot shoes. Running in my conventional shoes, I got worse knee pain than I've ever had, but after taking a little time off and switching to the Merrell Trail Gloves (which are basically like going barefoot, but with a little protection for the feet), the pain completely disappeared. We evolved to run on the balls of our feet and let our bent legs absorb the shock. It makes all the difference in the world. (I owe more thanks to Debby, my ex, who long ago said that thick running shoes can't be good for people, and my friend Lauren, for introducing me to Born to Run, the bible of the barefoot crowd.)

When I got on the stadium track at the end, it was vastly inspirational-- Carl Lewis and FloJo ran on this track at the Olympics-- and a tremendous letdown, because when Lauren and I ran a 10K here, we came into the stadium 50 yards from the finish line, and I expected the same here, which would have let me break the five-hour mark. Instead, we came in almost a full lap, a quarter mile, from the finish. And all I would have to do to beat my goal was to match the world-record 1500-meter pace. Inexplicably, I did not do so.

Kyle and me, a few minutes after the finish.

If you aren't a slow person who's run a marathon, I can't describe to you the sheer incomprehensible length of the damn thing, I'd say roughly approximately 46,147 steps; the sheer creakiness and achiness of everything below the waist I can mention in public; and the deadly monotony of the training, especially the long, long Sunday runs. All the way through, I kept thinking, "There's no way I'm ever doing this again."

And then, when I crossed the finish line, the relief and the release and the pride... well, maybe there was brief, manly tear, and you know, it wasn't so bad, and... heck, I know I can cut 58 seconds off my time...

Happier

This is a good book, but I won't mention it again in this post. It's just an illustration.

(If you don't want a detailed self-analysis that's a lot more about the SJC than the ROK, get out now!)

I am happier right now than I have been in many years; in some ways, in general satisfaction with life, this may be my best time ever.

Happiness mostly comes from inside, and I have always been somewhat dysthymic (good vocab word: in a chronic low-level depressive state). Why? I don't know; brain chemistry, I suppose. Some of my students used to give me Eeyore-themed presents, to match my outlook. In fact, I brought a stuffed Tigger-- the real, Milne Tigger, not that Disney schlock-- to Korea with me to remind myself to be more cheerful. I don't know that I'll ever reach true Tiggerhood, but I have at least achieved Poohdom, a general genial confusion.

With age has come a certain equanimity, if not wisdom: I recognize my strengths now and forgive myself (most of the time) my maddening weaknesses. I think I'm closer to being a good person than I was before, and a better teacher, and a better friend. I think.

The last week or so, though, has really changed my outlook completely. Last Saturday, I laid down the trail for my Yongsan Kimchi hashing group on my birthday run. It was also my Junior Trail Master hash-- 50-plus runs and five hares (laying trail), all in a bit under a year. I'd planned for six months to set a run from the brand-new subway stop opening near me; it's right near the neighborhood parks and my beloved Yangjae Cheon stream. Well, the new subway station was a year overdue, and as it turned out, it opened two days ago, six days too late for me to set the trail from there.

But we did run from a station not too far away, and what really made me feel great was how many hashers came because it was my birthday celebration. People who usually run with other groups made a special effort to be there, and that means a lot to me.

 The logo for my"Corndog's (Probably Not Last) Birthday" patch.

The actual haring was a perfect example of the kind of thing I've always hated about myself: I am criminally spacy sometimes. I set off to mark the trail, 15 minutes before the pack would follow-- and brilliantly left two of my three pieces of chalk behind. I found that out a mile into my four-mile course, and kept using the chalk I had until it ran out, a mile from the start/finish line.

I called myself some bad names; I shall not sully the pristine surface of the Internet by repeating them here. (This incredible zoned-outness, which I know makes me maddening to live with, is exactly the kind of thing I've dealt with my whole life, and I'm with myself almost constantly. I'm just now coming to accept it in myself.)

All I could do was to run as hard as I could back to the start, grab the chalk, and run as hard as I could back to where I'd left off, knowing that the pack would get there before I did and mill about in frustration, then wrathfully rend me limb from limb when they found me.

But somehow, miraculously, I made it back before they got there and completed marking the trail. Afterward, as part of the festivities, they taught me how to drink beer upside down from a straw:

The beer really went to my head, and very nearly vice-versa.

It's nice to have friends. This warm feeling began my winning streak.

But what really has mattered began the next day. I had just met Kyung ah, a lovely Korean woman of nearly my age, on a dating site. On Sunday, we met in person. And on Wednesday, for my actual birthday. And yesterday. We've been to movies and noraebang (karaoke parlors), gone hiking, shared lunch and dinner and birthday cake and wine... it's been wonderful.

Kyung ah is a writer on Korean history; she lives in the hills above Itaewon, the international neighborhood I go to so often for hashes and the What the Book store. We hit it off immediately; we have so much in common, politically, spiritually, and in our outlook on life. I find her wise and centered, and she makes me happy.

So, you say, it's been a long time for me, and of course having a girlfriend-- if two people with a combined age of 114 can be called girlfriend and boyfriend-- makes a guy feel good. And of course that is a big thing.

But I think my current outlook is more than that-- people who've known me a long time can tell that the clouds have been slowly clearing for me for quite a while. My hashing friends' regard and Kyung ah's high opinion of me, and mine of her, have added to little things, such as winning a teaching award and finishing last year's marathon, that were already making me like and trust myself more than ever before.

In many ways, other than the fact I don't have as many years in front of me as I did, I like being 58; I've gained more than I've lost in getting older.

I hope and intend to make that true for many years to come.

 "I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now."