Cherweon DMZ Peace Marathon & Race

This morning was the Onofray's Inaugural 10K in Korea. Mike and I joined the Seoul Flyers Running Club and completed the 10K in Cherweon near the DMZ (demilitarized zone between North and South Korea). 2010 is the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War and this race was a celebration of the end of the war and continued hope for on-going Peace.

American Baseball team hats are popular here. Some Korean women were happy to get a picture with me...sporting their (not mine) Detroit Tigers Hat! Go Tigers! Mac, Neil and Team Toast - I think we found some new team members for DWD 2011!

We also had a smaller fan. This little guy was so excited to talk in English to Americans. He finished the 10K too! By the way, the 2-finger sign does not mean "Peace" as in the U.S. Not exactly sure what it means, but no picture in Korea is taken without it.

Another note, Shira (the girl in the blue shirt below from the running group) ran a 100K ultra last weekend and still beat me by 4 minutes today. I really need to step up my game.

The course was rolling hills, but beautiful scenery with rice fields and gree,lush mountains all around us. Here are a few pictures from the race.

Another last funny note...our driver, Kay (drove us to the race) insisted on running behind us for the race. Kay smokes about 1 pack of cigarettes a day and had one about 30 minutes before the race started, but he was very worried for our health, so again he insisted running behind us. Kay did run the 10K (very impressive given the probably shape of his lungs), but we lost him after about 1km...he said, "Jennifer, you run too fast."

Kay is the guy on the right in the navy
blue t-shirt...running behind us
like he is the secret service and we are important people or something :-)

Free post-race meal. Korean BiBimBap...rice (bap),
veggies and a spicy sauce. It's a staple here in Korea.

Happy Finishers!
Happy Jen...I beat Mike for the first time (fair and square) and had a 10K PR of 54:05!
Although, to be fair, Mike works harder and longer in the office than me these days.

This is a re-post but we also had some picture of Korean War Tanks...the only real sign that we were near the DMZ...