Matthew's Body Pays the Price for Personal Best Half Marathon Record!!!!

The week leading up to the Jeonmahyup Half Marathon was not my typical pre-marathon week. Usually I abstain from alcohol and caffeine in an attempt to purify my body and mind. This week I lifted my personal rule I made for myself in Korea- "no drinking during the weekday". It was my friend Jamie's birthday on Thursday (Jamie is one of the Korean English teachers at my school) and I promised her a few months back that I would come out and get really drunk with her crew on her birthday. I made this promise before I even registered for the half marathon, so being a man of my word, I went out and got as drunk as a skunk Thursday---

(Do skunks really get seamed??? Maybe they distill some kinda food found in the forest and when its perfectly fermented they call their skunk friends over to their skunk den and get just frickin sacked off their homemade skunk moonshine!!! But of course no human could ever prove that this actually happens because nobody wants to get close enough to smell the alcohol on their breath, and even if someone was brave enough to get close enough to the skunk to smell their breath, the overwhelming stinky skunk stench would overpower the smell of the alcohol.... so I guess we'll never know!!!)

I cabed down to the university district (Kang Day Buk Moon) to meet them, we went to two pubs and had a fun time. Because I had already lifted the weekday drinking ban this week, I also accepted a spontaneous invitation to go out with my "Korean Tea, Art, and Culture" friends for some soju at a nearby Korean restaurant on Wednesday (I'll give you the deets on this circle of Korean friends in an upcoming blog). It was also a drunkily fun, late night kinda night! So much for purity of the body!

Anyways... My marathon team was meeting at the prison school 8:00 Saturday morning. When the whole team arrived on this cool clear morning, we packed into a few cars and we were off to Gawmi. Gawmi is located about 30 minutes north of Daegu. It is a small town, nestled between short, rolling hills. When we got there I was quite surprised, I saw no buildings taller then 2 stories, the small, old traditional Korean houses were scattered freely and spaciously around the village. The air smelt like what one would expect in a rural farming community in autumn- fresh, clean, and containing hints of farm animals and decomposing autumn leaves. It really had the feeling of traditional rural Korea, it was really beautiful- like nothing I've experienced so far in Korea, and the best part of all... I was going to get to run through it!!!

When we got out of the cars my team congregated at the large tent we rented. The marathon grounds were lively and had a party atmosphere with many tents that were filled with different local groups trying to promote their business. There were also many tents giving away free crap from food to acupuncture to pamphlets.

My teammates and I stretched, and changed into our cool new team uniforms that we just received Friday afternoon. They are made out of silver wicking material, are super soft, and have our team name in white Korean lettering on the front. It says phonetically "Daegu Runnersa Highe". My team decided on a name at a team meeting I was unable to attend, the next day they told me that they had a team name picked out - "Running High". I told them that "running high" is what a small group of health conscious potheads do in Canada, and I suggested an amendment to the name. They agreed that the name should be "Runner's High".

When the race started, I felt great. Conditions were, in my opinion, perfect for racing (it was partly cloudy, and maybe 6 degrees above zero). The course first took me through the small town, the old traditional architecture was really a sight to see. The houses that lined the street were unfenced and the sound of mooing and cock-a-doddle-doing echoed throughout the town. The police that were helping to patrol the course had their work cut out for them- they were doing more to chase the large, fat roosters off the road rather than stopping the non-existent, on coming traffic. Outside the town the marathon course slowly and gently traversed the side of a small, hilly mountain range. The mountains seemed so easy for me to climb... maybe because at the top of every peak their were old Korean ladies dressed in colorful local traditional celebration clothes. They were pounding out an intoxicating, almost hypnotic rhythm on traditional Korean percussion instruments that seemed to penetrate and liberate every aching muscle in my body. The course even weaved beside an old Buddhist temple. It was by far the most beautiful course I have raced on.

As I crossed the finish line with a time of 1:43 I felt great. I waited for and cheered on my other teammates that crossed the finish line, and when everybody finished we went back to our tent, ate some pig head soup, and finished off a whole case of mocklee (undistilled Korean rice wine that looks like milk and tastes kinda like nothing I've ever tried in Canada). After my teammates got a little drunk they proudly stole several boxes of bottle water (see picture) that was apparently left by someone.

The celebrating continued late into the night as we hit up a restaurant in Chilgok, drank more, went to a Noribang (Karaokee Room), drank more, then I went downtown for more partying after my loaded teammates all stumbled home.

The next day I woke up at 2:00 PM, and was surprised at what I saw...

Because my uniform was brand new, and I have never had a chance to run in it, I didn't know where it would chafe or where I should lube. I applied some lube to some areas where I thought it would chafe, but apparently I missed some very important areas!!! (It is a common practice for marathon runners to apply lubrication to all areas of the body that rub or make contact with the fabric of the uniform. The friction created by the fabric rubbing the body over such a long period of time causes painful rashing and can even break the skin).

I had two small rashes under my arms, two giant blisters on my feet, both my nipples had very minor cuts, and to my astonishment...

THE TIP OF MY PENIS HAD A CUT ON IT... OUCH!!!

...

I'm blaming the RUNNER'S HIGH.....