Runner's Dilemma #29 — Four Days Before the Race
Runner's Log | Runner's Dilemma #29
Four Days Before the Race
Lately, I keep coming across Shorts from the chairman of Seonyang Soju, a Korean soju company.
In last Sunday's video, he said:
I think that's it for this race's preparation..."
You could see it on his face: the calm confidence of someone who has done everything he could.
I'm in the same spot. Three weekends of 35km long runs, a 20km race-course run last Saturday, and the real training is done.
I've settled into the taper with a calm mind.
That's how it goes.
With the race coming up, I decided to write about how my daily life has changed since I started running marathons.
I. How I Think About Work
Back when I ran alone, a little at a time, my year was measured by my company's calendar.
Toward month-end: "What do I say in this month's sales meeting?"
After Q1: Q1 results and the Q2 plan.
After Q2: first-half results and a revised second-half plan...
That's how the year went by, measured in work.
Then I joined a running club, and that changed.
Fall: Seoul again, then Chuncheon.
In between: the Cheongnamdae ultra,
and the Hwadae Trail in the second half.
Prepare for a race, run it, prepare for the next one, run that one...
Do that, and a year disappears in no time.
This year went the same way, and suddenly it's October.
Looking back, when work went well I was thrilled, and when it didn't I was miserable.
The people I saw in good times and bad were all from work, and since work took up so much of my life, when things went wrong it was unbearably hard.
Since joining the club, though, I don't think I've sunk as low as I used to.
For someone for whom work was everything, running opened up a thought:
Spending time with people from all kinds of fields, and with retired members too, made me less sensitive to work stress than before.
work could no longer shake my whole mind.
That doesn't mean I work less.
I work the same, but I get less stressed.
Thinking about it now, that's exactly what changed.
II. Neighbor-Cousins
When I first joined the club, I had no intention of getting close to the other members.
I'd run with everyone at the regular meetups, then head straight home when it ended.
I did that for seven months.
But then, somehow...
Seeing the same faces every week and suffering through hard workouts together, I started to feel glad whenever I saw them.
We ran races together, ate together, and talked about this and that, and before I knew it,
had gained "neighbor-cousins."
(In Korean, iut-sachon means neighbors who are as close as family.)
After getting married I settled in Anyang, and only after twenty years do I finally feel like an Anyang local.
III. Yesterday's Me
Of all the countless famous sayings, one of the hardest to actually live by is this:
It's who you were yesterday."
But after running marathons for a while, I understand it a little.
I may envy a fast runner beside me, but I don't see them as a rival.
And someone slower than me could easily pass me someday, so I never take them lightly either.
Instead, the guy I always want to beat is someone else.
Three years younger than I am now.
That guy ran 10km in 47 minutes 44 seconds.
Now, no matter how hard I try, I can barely hold 4-minute pace for 5km.
Well...
That young guy is no pushover.
Still, strangely, I want to beat him.
"Ugh... I still have a long way to go."
Both thoughts are really about the person I used to be.
And so, somewhere along the way, I've ended up following a saying that was supposed to be hard to follow.
IV. Patience
"Stamina is national strength," as the Korean saying goes.
I never really understood what that meant.
But as my fitness gradually improved, a lot of things seemed to change.
I used to sleep and sleep on weekends and still feel tired.
When my wife suggested going somewhere, I'd answer in a curt, irritated tone because my body was worn out.
These days I come home from my weekend run, take care of a few things around the house, and say to her:
Which cafe should we try today?"
When the kids do something I don't like, I no longer snap at them the way I used to.
"They'll get better in time."
I find myself looking back at myself one more time.
once my body got a little easier,
my mind seems to have gained a little room too.
V. And the Club
None of these changes came simply from starting to run.
They came from running marathons, and I could only run marathons because I joined the running club.
Looking back, I feel like I've received so much from the club.
After joining, I went to a marathon for the first time.
And at that first race, the atmosphere felt like a festival, and I loved it.
After my first full marathon, I got injured and seriously considered giving up running.
But because the club was there, I got through those hard six months and was able to run again.
And I even ran 100km, something I had never once imagined doing in my life.
I've received so much.
So now I want to become a member
who can give something to someone else.
Not just take...
