DMZ Marathon

My first trip to the DMZ wasn’t to check out the fortifications against the enemy of North Korea, but for the International Peace Marathon. The purpose is to bring together people from all around the world to celebrate and promote peace. This is especially important when you’re within sight of the mountains of one of the world’s most dangerous and secretive countries: North Korea. The race was mostly a bunch of fitness-crazed South Koreans, but there were a good number of foreigners there, including a skinny African guy who won the whole thing. We were there for Team Dirt and my friend Justin’s campaign to raise money for choroideremia research. This is a rare degenerative sight disease that his brother has.

We caught the bus early. Not bright and early, because it was still dark at 5am when we went to take the bus. There was about a two hour drive through the haze and fog from where we were just North of Seoul to Cheorwon, very very close to the North Korean border. After we got off the bus, there was a station for everyone to get their temperature taken. Paranoid about swine flu much? Throughout the day there were also guys walking around in lab coats handing out sprays of disinfectant for everyone’s hands.

Team Dirt set up our base camp and started in on the group aerobics. Before I knew it the race was on. After 10K it was pretty hot outside. My time wasn’t too bad. I wasn’t the fastest out there, but I was still glad I didn’t do the half or the full marathon. After the race there was a bunch of food and refreshments and I soothed everything that ached. Did I mention I found out I was running the night before after another guy backed out? I also haven’t run since the spring haha.

It was a really fun day with everyone and the bus ride back was full of double dares and competitions. Who can drink the most gross Korean energy drink? Or eat a banana peel? Time to start training for the next race.