With my recent runs being under a pacing of 5min/km, I felt confident heading off to the "Next Time" 10km race but just for add confidence, I took a snap shot of a favourite quote and the K-Bere Brothers. I put the shot on my phone screen wallpaper because I'd be using my phone apps (MapMyRun and 8Tracks) during my run so I knew if I needed an extra boost of motivation I could simply glance at the screen... did that twice.
There four of us females running and we were surely supported by the three men who joined us. The husband of one of the gals took pictures, WOW President ran with me, and Snickers carried the bags for a few of us. It was very encouraging for me to be running with these ladies and hear their personal goals and ideas surrounding why this run was important.
Everyone knew understood the main reason why this was important to me -- I had a goal of 49mins.
And as I crossed the finish line, a lady approached me to put a number tag around my neck.
I DID IT!!! I CAME IN UNDER MY GOAL TIME!!!
I clocked in at 47:57, almost a minute less than my personal best 10km training run.
It'd be nice to take the credit for my success but it very much was a collaborated effort by many.
A huge thank you to all my friends, family, Hulkies, and sponsors who believe in me and encouraged me. An extra thank you to the Comeback Kid for letting me use her racing bib, thanks be to the other foreign females I raced with who hadn't come with me and who I didn't even know but gave me thumbs up and a high five during the race.
And of course a extra super duper large thank you to WOW President. I can't say this enough, I really am so blessed to have WOW as our club's leading sponsor. He's supported Snickers and I in ways that people will never fully understand or know. He's such a beautiful generous person who believes in us to the core.
After crossing the finish line myself, I then eagerly watched for my ladies to cross.
[Side note: big frowns from me for my camera acting up when one of the gals was crossing -- didn't get to snap her pic... boo, double boo. BOO BOO.]
There we were in all our glory, the five of us who had ran today. All smiles and lots of high fives.
Congrats to ALL of these amazing ladies for having such a successful run, they really kicked butt!
I ended up ranking in 4th place among the women in the 10km so they called me up.
I was really inspired by the other women on the stands, especially considering three of us in the top 4 were in the 30's age group. I talked to the 2nd place winner, a 26 year old foreign gal, and was both humbled and proud of her. She clocked in at 43 minutes, that's crazy awesome!!!
Laugh as you may but I thought the rice was a cool prize. We all joked about using it for Crossfit training at Hulk's but the truth of it is this prize just saved me a whack of money. I have a Korean husband, no need to say more.
It was a brutal race course, a beautiful one and one with no real traffic problems because it was pure country, but none the less a brutal one. It was so hilly and not just small short hills but long dragged out ones. I tried to make up for the uphill climb by really racing down them, as shown in my 5km and 7km pacing. In the last stretch of the race, the 9th kilometer, the pressure was definitely on. WOW was yelling at me to sprint and clapping so loudly so I sprinted as much as I could.
After the race, we all returned to Cheonan and then I had to quickly get ready for work. Sundays may be our slowest day at Hulk's but they never fail to be the most interesting.
Today we were visited by Korean boxing royalty -- two champs and a gold medalist in this shot -- and the next generation came along.
Introducing Adidas Baby. Anyone who loves Adidas as much as I do is ok in my books but it surely helps when you're super cute and have a fascination with foreigners as apparently she did.
Pyen Chi wasn't particularly interested in Adidas Baby but she loved soaking up some attention from a particular favourite champion boxer.
We were also visited by Mouse Doctor which was nice to see that he's up and feeling much better since his accident. We were also visited by some random artist who has decided to erect a headless man statue outside of Hulk's. I joked and said I was going to put boxing gloves on him but he's got no hands (which only means we'll have to make hands for him to wear gloves).
Sundays at Hulk's also seems to be turning into consistent sparring days with two different sparring matches occurring today.
And after quite a long day, filled with physically and mentally pushing ourselves and enjoying lots of sweet visitors, WOW took some of us out for spicy chicken.
It was such an awesome day today. This IS the life.
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