My first race

On Saturday, I ran the Nike Women's Race Seoul 7K with one of my friends here. It was a tough race complete with hills and balmy weather, but I had a great time running it. I am a newbie when it comes to running, only having trained seriously for the last few months, so it was really satisfying to see all my hard work pay off. I made my target time and came in 681st out of 6,000 -- not too shabby for my first race.

Say what you will about Nike, they know how to throw a party. The race kicked off at 6:30 pm with fireworks and a pep talk from a popular TV show host. During the race, DJs blasted music at the water stations and a group of young male cheerleaders high-fived the runners and shouted "Fighting!" (the Korean version of "You can do it!") when the course started going uphill.

As I ran through the finish line, I met my own cheerleader, Mike, who had bag-holding and photo-taking duty during the race. I caught my breath and then headed toward the reception line where men in white tracksuits and bow ties clapped demurely while the ladies picked up their complementary necklace designed by none other than the queen of Korean female athletes, Kim Yu-na.

But the race was just the beginning of the evening's events. Most of the 6,000 women who participated in the race stuck around for the After Party featuring unlimited glasses of (cheap) white wine and performances by some of Korea's biggest musicians. I was excited to see Drunken Tiger and Kim Tae-woo since I actually knew some of their songs, but I have to say the best performance by far came from the pop orchestra that kicked off the show. Only in Korea will you see thousands of people sing at the top of their lungs and dance along to an orchestra.