On March 17, I ran the Seoul International Marathon! Since this spring I’m not doing track at Wellesley, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to run my first marathon. I had into several obstacles in the months leading up to the marathon that made my training less than ideal including bad air quality and an injury, so I was not feeling very prepared going into it. Despite being less prepared than I would have liked, I was determined to make the most of it.

On the day of the marathon, I met another exchange student at SNU named Adrien who was also running at 5:20am to walk to the station to catch the first train (we ended up running an unintended warm-up to the station because we were late). We thought it might be a challenge to figure out where we needed to go once we got off the train, but it turned out all our looking at the map was unnecessary because the subway station was just packed with runners going to the starting area. Since race start was at 8am, we had to drop our bags at the vehicles that would take them to the finish by 7:30. However, since we were first-time marathon runners we were in the last group to start, so we didn’t get to cross the starting line until 8:30… needless to say it was quite cold waiting without our warmup gear for over an hour.

When we got to cross the start line at 8:30, all the nervousness I was feeling up until then dissipated and I was just focused on running. For the first 10 miles or so it was so crowded I was only focused on going around people, which was a little frustrating but also helped me not focus on the fact that I was running as much. Adrien and I were trying to run together for at least a while but we lost each other around mile 3, so I was on my own the rest of the way. I was getting pretty tired around the halfway but my friend Alexis from Wellesley was at the halfway point and then I felt invigorated after seeing her! The last several miles were grueling, but it was such a good feeling when I finally crossed the finish line inside the Seoul Olympic Stadium. I was so tired and in pain but I was so happy to have finished my first marathon and I got a better time than I expected given that my training was ideal. Also having Alexis there cheering for me in the middle and at the finish meant the world to me! It was such a cool experience to run my first marathon in Korea and definitely is one of the biggest highlights of my experience here.