This post is totally unrelated to the above pictures, as in the case in many cases but what can you do?!
I do my best thinking when I'm out jogging around the Dankook lake. My mind wonders off and I think about the most random of things. Today while running an interesting idea hit me. I returned to Ggum Guum all excited and super eager to share it with Snickers.
"Why don't we start our own running club?" I told him.
The idea is perfect.
I'm a member of a running club in Seoul that I've yet to make it out to any of their weekly runs for the very fact that it's way too far from my house to travel to when I can just run here in Cheonan. The Seoul running club has over 300 members and though I am not sure as to how many of those are active within Korea, their club is thriving and their members compete in numerous races around Korea. They claim to compete once a month in a race but I'm sure they do more than one race a month. I met a couple of them when I did my half marathon and I'm interesting in picking up tips but I am so unmotivated to take a one hour bus, take a subway to where they run, and then have to travel all the way back to Cheonan.
Some of the ideas we pondered over today was who our running club would be directed towards, running routes and schedules, club names and club mottos. We're thinking about hosting 2-3 different styles of group runs, like a beginner's run and a long slow run for the more advanced. Snickers and I would take turns each week with who'll run at the end of the pack with the beginners and who'd take on the more advanced. Basically every member would run the same route but how they run it would differ. For example, the more advanced of the group might do a run using H.I.I.T (High Intensity Interval Training) or add on extra laps to the run.
Ggum Guum would pose as a kind of meeting point, a club hangout. Members would meet up at Ggum Guum where they'd be able to safely store their bags and whatnot while they run. If they wanted to shower after the run they could do so and then we hang around Ggum Guum for a bit of socializing. And who knows, maybe after our Saturday runs I could cook up a banch of my protein-packed pancakes!!! Snickers and I are thinking about having a $10 a month membership fee to cover any group costs, like after run snacks and hot water. It'd be nice to have a one-a-month group dinner and it'd be nice to register our club members in various races around Korea.
We already have hook-ups for getting club t-shirts printed and we're thinking about getting a big banner made so that we can advertise about our club. It'd be nice to have a balance between foreigners and Koreans. It'd be a club solely based on running and health. It's not a language exchange club and it's not a club meant for socializing or for hooking up. Of course picking up extra language bits and new friends will come naturally but we want members to understand that first and foremost the point of our club is running.
Both Snickers and I agreed that we'd like to keep this group relatively small so we may just ditch the idea of the advertising banner or put a limit on the membership size.
Having been successful with three personal training clients already, I am really enjoying training and feel quite successful myself when they tell me how they feel so much better or are losing the stubborn weight they have worn for too long. I find motivation in their success so I think our club might be more directed towards the beginner-intermediate runner. I'm kind of against having any hardcore runners in our group for the very fact that no one likes a know-it-all and I think it'd be kind of discouraging for our beginners to run alongside them.
We want to help people better their lives and take control of their health and fitness via the awesomeness of running.
QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Any club-making tips you'd care to share?
QUOTE OF THE DAY...
In running, it doesn't matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last. You can say, 'I have finished.' There is a lot of satisfaction in that.
--Fred Lebow
As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).
After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.
Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.
No comments:
Post a Comment