#Korea Week 6 – Running My First Half Marathon!

#Korea is a weekly series on my blog documenting my time leading up to and during to my year in Korea. Check out the original post for a longer explanation here.

WEEK 5: MAY 14 – MAY 20

Yep, not much on the Korea front! I didn’t take my laptop with me to my friend’s place for the half-marathon, so this post is coming in a little late. Basically, lots of random things were decided this week, so let me see if I can remember everything:

1. I decided not to go to Nepal. I’ve honestly been so incredibly stressed with traveling, moving, training for this half, and getting things together for Korea that I found myself wide awake at 3 am the night before I was supposed to drive 10 hours down to North Carolina. This was supposed to be a FAM trip. I still didn’t have actual flight tickets in hand after sending two emails, my itinerary was still incorrect (and had me flying from JFK), I had no clue what to expect for this trek, and I was dreading the thought of rushing around after the half. After two unanswered emails about my flight tickets and chatting with other bloggers, I decided to cancel my participation. I’ll make it to Nepal eventually!
2. I drove 10 hours down to North Carolina. This is the longest I’ve ever driven, and I’m honestly surprised my car didn’t breakdown, so I feel like this is worth mentioning :P. I had to pull over somewhere and take a nap, but I made it! America really does run on Dunkin.
3. My friend put on a play at her school. So the Friday before our race, we went to the high school where Corinne teaches at to see a play her and her friend/co-worker, Emma, put on with their students. It’s the first play the school has done in ages, and it was fun seeing all the students so excited.
4. I finished my first half marathon! I’m not going to lie, there was a lot of walking involved. I ran about 2.5 miles before walking. Then I ran at the start of every song to see how far I could go. Eventually, that got too hard, and I alternated running at the beginning of a song and then walking the next song. It took me 3:13 to run, but I finished! I’m going to keep running and trying to run for longer stretches. Who knows? Maybe another half at the end of the year! My friends did amazingly — Corinne ran around 2:15 and Fran ran around 2:30. None of us had ever done a half-marathon before in our lives, so I’d consider that a success.

And that’s about it! I’m going to be hangout in North Carolina probably until next weekend, and then head home for June. Can’t believe it’s already the summer. Corinne played “I Got a Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas, and it dawned on me that that song is now eight years old.

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