Why I run.

The 1st Annual Gapcheon 10K was an event hosted by friends of friends here in Daejeon to raise money to help research and fight against MS here in Korea. It would be a small, casual and friendly group of local foreigner (that's us) runners just out for excercise and to help a good cause. It would mean slightly more for me however, since it was the best i could do to compensate for having missed my marathon that I had been training for in November. 45 of us toed the starting line on the beautiful sunny - but frigid - December morning.

So off we went; many of us friends and acquaintences from the various athletic cliques around Daejeon. without really knowing what to expect from the competition that day, I jumped out to my moderate 7-minute mile goal pace and was slightly surprised when I led the way still a couple of kilometers in! I remember wondering how long it would take before one of the guys trodding along on my back shoulder would make his move and effortlessly fly past me, never to be seen again.

But a few K's later, their move still hadn't come and I was feeling strong in the cold weather so I turned it up a bit to see if they'd come with - to my delight, they didn't! i had led the race the entire way and that lead was now widening by the step!! for the first time it occured to me... "I might actually win this race!" I pushed harder and could feel my lead growing though i never looked back.

Around what must have been the 7K mark, I came up on a bridge which I just knew had to be my turn-around so I scoured it with my eyes looking for an arrow, sign, flag, cone - anything, but there was nothing there. i was so sure that it was the right one, but had to pass it. i remember distinctly saying to myself, "I'd rather lose because i went too far than to win by acidentally cutting the course short." There was another bridge a few hundred meters ahead; that would have to be it or i'd know i did something wrong. But as i neared it, i could see that it was under construction and would be impossible to cross. I realized that I had blown it and passed my unmarked turn-around bridge!

at exactly that moment, I heard my named called loudly from behind me. The 2nd and 3rd place runners had the course memorized, noticed my mistake and motioned me back. Just as i was not-so-mildly cursing myself for not having followed my gut-instinct and taking the bridge, (thus flushing my first real chance at winning any race) i realized something amazing. The two were waiting for me before they would cross the bridge! it was an act of sportsmanship unlike anything i'd personally experienced in 20 plus years of athletics! At the time however; I thought it would be wasted since I'd now accidentally given up my 100+ meter lead, made my race course 10.3K and totally demoralized myself while they got a breif rest. How would I ever hold them off now??

Then, just as I was at my worst self-pittiful, pessimistic, internal-whine moment contained in my memory, something jarred back into place in my brain and it came over me, "Na, screw all that! There's still a mile left in this race and I'm one meter behind the leader... I'm still going win this!"

New fate decided, I increased my pace steadily. Dan (an old climbing buddy who was the one that had called me back to the turn-around) dropped back into third place, but the tall guy stayed right there over my shoulder with me as I sped up. His breathing was strong and controlled just behind me. For a brief moment, I weakened again and felt as if he'd called my bluff and that he might just be toying with me, waiting to hammer down an incredible finish with his extra long legs.... but with only a kilometer left, I couldn't really afford to wait around and test out my self-doubting theory.

I thought back to high school cross country as I tried to gather the heart to drop him - when you pass someone (or attempt to pull-away in this case), doing so gradually will pull a strong runner right along with you. You have to demoralize him in the process - break his will by taking off suddenly and in as close to a full sprint as you can muster. This demonstrates to your would-be competitor that you have plently left in the tank; as false as that may be. If I sped up gradually (like I'd done in my prior attempt), he'd almost surely just pace me without hardly even noticing I had made 'a move'.

It's a bit like the old adage, I suppose: 'If a frog is placed in cold water and heated slowly, it will stay in even to its boiling point and death; but if placed directly into boiling water, it will jump out immediately'. I knew I needed the boiling water to make this guy bail out! (Coach Boyle would be so proud!) :) All doubts aside, I blasted off away from him without warning.

When I took off, I could tell that I'd created separation, but without looking back, I wasn't sure if I could still hear his footsteps somewhere behind me or if my mind was just playing tricks. Either one was enough to keep me near a dead sprint as roared through the finish line in first!!

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FINISH!

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As you can see above, there was no great crowd, no tape to break and certainly no champagne bath waiting for me at the finish line. And my time of 44:09 (a course record since this was 'first annual', but one that will certainly be shattered the very next time someone runs it) was nothing to really brag about - far from my personal best even. So, given those facts; why write a lengthy blog about the morning, then? I mean, who really cares that I beat a handful of charity-driven foreigners, right??

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Because I pushed and I dug deeper. When my body wanted to just slow down, give up, or just stop altogether faced with pain, mental mistakes and a significant detour; I instead went faster. These are the moments that runners live for. Any run, (or anything for that matter) whether it's a weeknight jog or The Badwater Ultramarathon, is a chance to exceed your previous limits - and, in doing so, prove to yourself that what you thought were limits, in fact don't exist. You find them, and then you shatter them; one after another. In this way, running doesn't just improve your ability to run, it makes you a stronger person. It offers countless opportunities to conquer mental and physical barriers. At the end of a race, you can look back and think, "I've accomplished things - using only my body and this ratty old pair of Brooks - that I used to consider to be impossible." It's a feeling that I'm addicted to and is a driving force behind much of how I live my adult life.

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This is why I run.