The Pyeongchon 10k

Ladies and gentlemen, as of today the Pensive Sophist would like to add a new bullet-point to his resume: runner of a 10K! Who’s got two thumbs and has run a 10K? This guy [me smugly pointing my two thumbs at myself]! It didn’t go down in quite the way I imagined it would, but still, I will go to bed tonight having completed the first long-distance race of any kind in my life.

As you know, a few weeks ago I was persuaded by my friend Anna to attempt a 10k with her this weekend. The plan was to run in the Nike Human Race, which is a 10k that Nike has organized in cities all around the world to try and get people to get out and run on a global scale. By the time we had heard about the race, the registration for the local one in Seoul had already been closed, but we were told that we could still run the race as long as we weren’t worried about timing ourselves (and not getting one of the cool Human Race t-shirts, as well). For me, that really wasn’t a big deal- honestly, my only concern was being able to finish the race all the way through without having to stop to walk, keel over, pass out, etc.

In the last week, I had been upping my workouts to try and push myself to run further, as evidenced by the gloat at the end of my last blog entry. I was feeling pretty good about the prospect of the race until yesterday, when I got a text message from Anna: the race was actually on Saturday (not Sunday) and was scheduled for 4:00 pm instead of the morning (I work on Saturday evenings). Needless to say, I was pretty bummed. I’d been getting myself amped up for the race in the last few days; we had a small contingent of friends who were going to go to cheer us on with signs, and had even made plans to make our own independently-designed matching t-shirts to wear on race day. The prospect of running with thousands of other people was a little daunting, but also exciting- I wanted to feel like I was really running in a race, not just exercising.

After getting the bad news, I took a little while to mull over my options. Skipping work to run the race would probably get me fired (or at least send me in that direction), so I ruled that out pretty quickly. I could just not run at all- after all, it had only been about two weeks since I decided to do it in the first place, and now I wouldn’t have to push myself. But that idea just didn’t sit right with me. I spent some time browsing the Nike website and saw how much they were encouraging anyone who wanted to go out and run the 10k that day, no matter whom they were with or where they were.

“Screw it!” I told myself. I am going to run this race, whether or not there is anyone there to watch me, cheer me on, or run alongside me. I went mapmyrun.com, a site I use to keep track of my workouts that I was introduced to over the summer by my friend Bentzi, who as a marathoner himself has been a big inspiration for me in the last couple of months (I wear the blue short-shorts he gave me from his marathon everyday when I run), and mapped out a route in my neighborhood: 6.23 miles, or 10 kilometers [http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/ma/worcester/256125628290026119]. I went on itunes and spent a fair amount of time picking out a playlist for the run, trying to organize it to give me some boosts of musical energy when I thought I would need them most.

And this morning, I woke up, got out of bed, stretched, slapped myself in the face a few times, and on my way out the door looked into the mirror and told myself, “Mark, the next time you see yourself you are going to have finished a 10k.” And I did.

The run went about as smoothly as I could have hoped for, at least physically; there were a couple of times when I wasn’t paying attention and accidently crossed the street when I didn’t have to, but really that was all. I tried to store up energy so I would make sure I’d be able to finish the race, but by the end I was still feeling strong, and definitely could have gone longer if I had wanted to. Before the race, I set a goal for myself to finish in 55 minutes, based on how fast I’ve been running recently (I usually average about an 8:40 mile). I finished the 10k in 54:42, which works out to an 8:48 mile, so I was very pleased with myself, especially considering how much energy I still had at the end.

As I came to a stop at the end of the race, there was no tape to break at the finish line, no crowd of screaming observers, no friends to cheer me on. I didn’t get a shirt to commemorate the day, and no one watching me running today probably even knew that I was running a 10k. Despite all that, do I still feel like I ran a race? Hell yes, I do! That was the Pyeongchon leg of the 2009 10k Human Race. And I did it.