It was sunset. The golden light of the sun penetrated the thick green foliage overhead, its beams leaving patterns of molten orange on the trail ahead of me. It was beautiful and completely silent, save for the occasional rustle of a breeze in the treetops and the cheerful chirps of unseen birds. I looked back at Kent. We were slowing down.
It’s striking how such highs in one’s life can be followed by such lows (and vice versa, of course). A few weeks earlier, I’d been on top of the world after completing my first 70k race. At this moment, I was coming to terms with the fact that we were not going to finish this race, the 2018 Geoje Jimaek Trail Run 100k.
Although it was the right decision, it was not an easy one – ranking up there with the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. For a multitude of reasons, it was hard. It was hard because, when we signed up back in December, we thought this race would be one of the highlights of the year. Because the island’s mountainous terrain is known for being tough – and we really like tough. And it was hard because, despite all odds, I was feeling good – but my husband was not.
The extraordinary month of May
After dashing off to Kazakhstan – and to a podium finish in the gorgeous Tengri Ultra – we returned to Korea. There were three weeks between our two races, which we thought was just about perfect. We’d successfully managed the two weeks between the Korea 50k and the Tengri Ultra, so we were confident we could be ready for the 2018 Geoje Jimaek Trail Run 100k in three.
Still, the week following the race was wild. We did a whirlwind one-day tour of some of Kazakhstan’s scenic places before taking a red-eye flight home. I was still buzzing from adrenaline, so our travel plans truly were red eye inducing for me. In the 48 hours following Tengri, I probably slept a total of 3 hours (Kent a little more, thanks to his amazing ability to sleep anywhere, in any position).
But it was a very happy whirlwind of new sights and smells and treasured memories. The experience left me bubbling over with energy and excitement. While Kent opted for a few days off in the week after the race, I still felt like running – so I did! Nothing hard or out of the ordinary – just a joyful jog on my favorite local trail. Since the race was on a Monday, our weekly mileage looked high, but in reality I’d only added a few extra kilometers in the week afterwards.
We decided to carry the momentum over to our 120 mountain mission, exploring three new peaks in the two weekends between the two races (including one of my new favorites!). Again, nothing out of the ordinary, and we tried to be conscious of keeping our effort to a minimum and choosing the shortest trails.
We even prided ourselves on resisting the siren call of the TNF – one of the only Korean trail races we still haven’t run. It’s held in our province and many friends would be going…but we opted out of The North Face race in the hopes of saving up our energy for Geoje Jimaek.
Then, some brilliant weather derailed the remainder of our restful plans in week two. It’s easy to recognize this as one of several errors in retrospect, but at the time, well, it was glorious! After two days of a steady cleansing rain, the air was clear, the skies were shining and the trails beckoned irresistibly! Between our mountain missions, a couple of outings with a friend and runs on our own trails, we somehow ended up with over 75 kilometers without really realizing what was happening!
Of course, in the final week before the race, we did actually take it easy, doing just one shake-out run. I spent some time doing other preparations: scouring the race website, trying to match the course profile to the published aid station distances and forming a race plan.
We’d hesitated to ask our boss for still more time off, but managed to finagle an hour off on Friday before the race. We knew we’d be cutting it close, but we’d followed similar crazy plans for missions and even other races (the 2017 Korea 50k, for example) so we thought it would be okay. Rushing out of work, we took a bus to a nearby city where we’d reserved a rental car, and drove down to the race site. Motivated by caffeine and excitement, Kent drove us straight there, nonstop. We did not have a proper dinner, but we noshed a few snacks in the car.
We parked in a dark lot, walked across a dark field and conducted our check-in. I met the race director for the second time, and once again, he reminded me of how tough the course was. We’d gotten to our destination in a surprisingly short time, but we weren’t sure what to do next! We tossed around the idea of finding a motel, but with a little less than two hours to go before we needed to catch the race shuttle, we decided we’d just try to get a spot of sleep in the car.
The 2018 Geoje Jimaek Trail Run
In many ways, this race was the polar opposite of Tengri. The Geoje Jimaek Trail Run is about as far from the open steppe as one could be! Here, instead of running out in the plains under a vast blue sky, we ran almost entirely in the forest, under a canopy of green. In Kazakhstan, we were deep in the interior of the continent, but on Geoje, we were on it’s island-dotted fringes: from Geoje’s peaks we had
In many ways, this race was the polar opposite of Tengri. The Geoje Jimaek Trail Run is about as far from the open steppe as one could be! Here, instead of running out in the plains under a vast blue sky, we ran almost entirely in the forest, under a canopy of green. In Kazakhstan, we were deep in the interior of the continent, but on Geoje, we were on it’s island-dotted fringes: from Geoje’s peaks we had incredible Hallyeohaesang National Park (한려해상국립공원) views!
But there were similarities too! Like Tengri, I formed a strong scent memory of Geoje. Up in the mountains, flowers were in full bloom; their sweet fragrances suspended in the hot, humid air. I smelled apricot blossoms and lavender and a whole host of other sensational florals that I didn’t recognize.
We didn’t really sleep in the car. But we were up and ready, albeit slightly nauseous, to hop on the shuttle to the race start! We said hello to some friends, many of us dazed by the heady, conflicting swirl of nerves and sleepiness. Kent kept telling me how exhausted he was, and to be honest, I was quietly trying to wake up and shake off a headache myself. Not the best way to start, but I was optimistic that the trails would cure us.
And they did! After a slightly delayed start, we hit the trails as the sky was becoming blue with the first hints of dawn. I ran like a rocket on the flat, easy starting section of the trail. Kent and I had discussed wanting to avoid a bottleneck at the first climb, so I tried my best to be speedy here. Originally, I thought we’d slow down once we reached that first climb, but we didn’t! We’d met a new friend on the trail, and were feeling great!
If this were a novel, I’d label this chapter The Sunrise and The Sea. We reached the first peak on the trail right as the orange halo of the sun rose over the horizon. The warm sunrise light cast the course in bronze and gold. We scrambled onto large boulders above the treeline, and had our first views out over the stunning and rugged scenery of islands and bays.
But it was somewhat like coming up for air during a swim. We’d rise over the treetops, gasp in awe at the dramatic views, then plunge back down into the forest. The pace was intense, and I didn’t want to slow down and risk being trampled in a stampede. On our mountain missions, we linger on peaks – but this was a race! It was challenging, but I felt like I could push forward and hold on to my speed.
We dropped down to CP1 where we saw a few familiar faces and collected some high fives. There, we paused just long enough for me to stuff a half cucumber and two fistfuls of pretzels into my mouth. Kent, just behind me with our new friend, was also participating in this snack attack. But there was no time to lose: ahead of us was the biggest climb of the day!
Garasan is the Geoje Jimaek Trail Run’s highest peak: a relentless ascent up a steep grade. This is something we love. I’d even say this is one of our strengths! We whipped out our poles for the first time, put our heads down and climbed! We were at the top in what felt like no time. This time we did pause – briefly – to admire the summit stele and the incredible vistas spread out below!
Once again, we thundered down and into CP2. As I poured cup after cup of Gatorade down my thirsty throat, the volunteers congratulated me and said something about my place in the race that I didn’t quite catch. I was in the top three, perhaps? The news floored me. I had no idea we were going at such a clip, after a night of no sleep! Another runner arriving at the aid station also said some kind words about our speed. Wow! We seemed to be off to a great start!
But everything began to unravel rather rapidly after that. As we began the next climb, Kent grew flustered and even angry. In an episode of what I now think might have been either hypoglycemia or hyponatremia, he raged against his exhaustion, our pace, and even his favorite energy bars. We pulled over and he sat in the grass. He was unable to catch his breath, he said, and it was hampering his ability to take in enough calories.
When we got moving again, I agreed that we should perhaps reign in the pace a little to avoid potential burnout. So we ran along at a more sustainable speed to CP3. There, Kent was able to take a break in the shade and chat with another runner while I refilled our water, and got started on the pretzels and raw veggies. In these first few aid stations, I was delighted by the fresh produce and salty, crunchy pretzels – eating my fill at every stop. Again, the volunteers here mentioned my place – I think I was 5th or 7th at this point. I smiled and thanked them. Looking over at my salty, white-faced partner, I secretly offered up a little prayer just to finish.
After CP3, there was a brief resurgence in both our speed and our spirits. We met a lovely, friendly runner sporting a big smile and saying many kind and inspiring things. She was doing an amazing job of zipping over the 47k course, so we soon said farewell. But our interaction with such a bright person was just what we needed. This chance encounter left Kent smiling too, and we went along a merry way.
Soon afterwards, we came to the split where runners on the 47k course turned left, and where we would go right to follow the 100k route. An hour earlier, when Kent was feeling awful, I’d entertained the idea of suggesting switching to the 47k. It was something I knew we could do even in the most difficult circumstances. But a sit, a couple of cups of coke and some friendly conversation seemed to have done wonders for Kent. He was in the throes of a full-on second-wind, so with no hesitation, I led us down the right fork.
We ran into the next aid station for another snack attack, and once again were quickly on our way. Now we were going at a slow but steady run. Kent was quiet, perhaps not feeling himself, but seemingly okay. We climbed a couple of new peaks alongside some new friends, and descended onto the first dirt road of the day! The gently-sloping gravel surface was by far the easiest terrain we’d seen all day, but it was exposed. The sun was hot, and we were thirsty, but we maintained our pace, recalling similar sections of the Korea 50k course.
Ahead we spotted an MTB sign – or wait, was it a checkpoint? Indeed it was! CP5 was a complete surprise in another way too – it was self-serve, water only! We were not the only surprised runners there. Several people had kicked off their shoes and lay in the grass or sat inside a little gazebo. We refilled our water, chatted and joked with some of our fellow runners, and sat in the grass ourselves. This was by far our longest CP stop, lasting maybe 10-15 minutes. Kent was eager for another chance to sit and try to eat something, and plopping down in the shade didn’t feel half-bad to me either.
Nonetheless, I soon got impatient, and we were up and on our way again. Slowly. There’s no denying that our pace was dropping now, more and more. We were in the middle of a cluster of people who were walking up a hill when a speedster zipped by and reminded us all that if we wanted to make the cut-off times, we’d better hurry. So I coaxed Kent back into a bit of a jog, and we ran along once more. At this point, we were looking for the lead pack running in the opposite direction. We were surprised not to see anyone until just around the corner from CP6!
I was a little surprised by this aid station too. Instead of the spread of snacks, the volunteers had cooked rice and soup available. I helped Kent to a bowl of both, and ultimately decided to mix a bowl of rice with a cup of coke for myself (I know that’s weird). I’d hoped for some sports drink and a salty snack, but I was nonetheless grateful for another snack stop. Music played, and runners came and went amidst the usual aid station hustle-and-bustle.
But the weirdness continued. We saw a friend who was pulling out of the race, and it seemed to be based partially on a misunderstanding about the cut-off times. Our drop bags were waiting for us – but we would have to ignore our special little treats if we wanted to beat the cut-off times ourselves. One of the race directors lingered near us, asking if we wanted to quit. What I wanted, I realized, was to get out of there!
Urging Kent onward, I became acutely aware that he was persevering in his struggle only to please me. I knew he’d been suffering, but I was still convinced that we had to try. One hundred kilometers is a long way: lots of time for a third-wind, I thought. The next section was mainly rolling trail and a gently upward sloping road. We cheered for faster runners heading back in the opposite direction, and they cheered for us. We made steady progress, eventually making it to an area right below a peak! The volunteers waiting at the top, in CP7, could see us too! They rang their bells and cheered for us as we made our way up the steps to the top.
Although I was very excited to finally be reaching the turnaround and the halfway point, I also struggled a bit myself on this ascent. It should have been an easy climb on stairs, but I got hit with a strong bout of nausea. It was not entirely unexpected – as I often feel slightly ill when the air quality is poor and I’ve been outside all day. But this was so intense that when I got to the top, instead of jumping for joy, I sat down on a bench; leaning over my knees and trying not to barf on my shoes.
Kent joined me a few minutes later. After some deep breaths, finally, I was able to get up, thank the volunteers and drink a cup of coke. We had a look around from the observation deck, and, a few meters away, the summit stele. Seeing so much beauty re-energized me, or maybe it had something to do with the bubbles in the coke!
Time to go back. The next section retraced our steps the way we had come, back to CP6 – which would now be CP8. I ran down the road, calling encouragement to Kent. But it soon became clear to me that it just wasn’t working. He had been slowing down up to this point – but we had been making progress. Now, I slowed until we were side by side. A few runners passed, urging us on. ‘I can’t run anymore,’ Kent told me, and I knew it was true. He was white-faced, dark-eyed and tight-lipped, inching his way forward. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed us to keep going as far as we had. But I knew with sudden clarity that I shouldn’t push any more.
We walked alone towards the check-point as the sun set beyond the tunnel of the forest. We stopped once to admire a long snake, and again at a bench to don headlamps. ‘I guess we have to talk about what to do next,’ he said. During those final few kilometers, I learned more about myself and about teamwork than I have in years of other life experience.
We walked up to CP8 under the cover of darkness. It was no festive affair, now. The few people gathered under the tents were about to depart via taxi. The race director asked us again if we would quit. I was struck mute, but Kent answered for us. Then we too, drove away in a taxi.
Lessons Learned
Maybe this is a fitting example of the ‘sometimes you win and sometimes you learn’ dichotomy. We’d achieved a great victory earlier in the month, preceded by two other awesome performances. We had been lucky, and we had won. Now, it was time to learn.
The 2018 Geoje Jimaek Trail Run was our second DNF. In the 2016 Korea 50k, there was a real sense of injustice accompanying our failure to complete the course. The second-to-last section was the longest of the course with the tightest time constraints, the final CP wasn’t where we expected it to be, and we didn’t know that the cutoffs would be so strictly enforced. Our DNF was not a decision but a shock; an incontrovertible, non-consensual snipping of our timing tags. We could have gone on. At the Geoje Jimaek Trail Run, we arrived at CP8 with three minutes to spare before the cutoff. And, as the race had started a bit late, we might have been able to ask for more time. But we couldn’t go on. Stopping was a decision all our own, an immeasurably harder burden to bear.
It’s possible that I naively thought we’d have only one DNF marring a long, lovely career of amateur adventures. Now, I know better. It’s also possible that with all the good fortune I’ve been blessed with recently, I thought we were invincible. I try to count my blessings and recognize the role of luck and circumstance, but maybe in some un-examined corner of my mind I thought success was inevitable.
One thing that was not a part of our premature finish was the course itself. We both loved Geoje Jimaek’s undulating trails and beautiful forest scenery throughout, even during difficult moments! The course was designed to be both beautiful and tough: the organizers expected a 30% finisher rate for the 100k, and that’s indeed what they got (including only 5 female finishers). But I really don’t think the difficulty was a major factor in our failure. Truly, this is the kind of terrain we love. Which makes it all the more difficult that we’re not among the finishers.
There are so many what if‘s and if only‘s about this race – but there are several concrete lessons to be learned.
Lesson 1: I think the most important lesson is that the human body is capable of amazing things – if you fuel it right and give it the rest it needs.
Not optimizing our nutrition before or during the race, and not sleeping prior to the event acted as multiplier effects: making an already challenging event far more difficult still. Failing to prioritize those two things adequately is a mistake I hope never to make again. This error caused some very real, physiological effects that were the primary cause of our premature finish.
Lesson 2: Equally important, in my opinion, is the mental component of this sport.
Although we stopped racing due to physical factors, this was a learning opportunity – so I want to address the other half of the equation: the mind.
I think it’s not enough to just be positive, or associate only with other upbeat racers. I want to learn how to spread positive energy, not just encapsulate it for myself. It’s also not enough to have a good race plan. You need to have several tiers of race plans that you can execute even when exhausted. And you need contingency plans for when everything goes spectacularly wrong. I thought I’d examined several worst-case scenarios in advance. But, we’d been so lucky in recent events that preparing for disaster was low on our list of priorities. I did not think this course would be easy, but I think I treated it too much like any of our other missions. Next time, I plan to do much more mental preparation.
Training the mind for an endurance event is very individual and personal – but its also critical for teams to have a shared sense of mental strategy.
We are extremely lucky in that we support each other, practically and emotionally, throughout races and other missions. Being part of this team is a gift, and something I’m deeply grateful for. Usually, having a partner means having someone to celebrate every peak and snack with. But sometimes it also has to mean sharing the burden of something difficult.
Maybe we ran too much in the weeks prior to the event. Certainly we didn’t rest and eat enough. Possibly we need to work on our joint mental game. Maybe we ran too fast at the start. But. We did run over 60 kilometers of a really tough ultra course (taking us 16 and a half hours!). And we did it in rough shape and much less than ideal conditions. It wasn’t the result we wanted, but our strong effort is worth celebrating, even so.
In the days afterward, I spent a long time obsessing about this race: thinking about what I wanted to remember – and repeatedly recalling what I could not forget. It got me researching salt supplements and other 100k races. At the end of the day (literally and metaphorically), I’m grateful. Grateful for an adventurous run with friends old and new, exploring a beautiful place. I’m grateful to be a part of a traveling, trail-running team of two that does amazing adventures all around Korea and the world. And, I’m grateful for the opportunity this race gave me to develop. Not only strategies about racing and nutrition, but to improve as a person and a partner.
We live on to run another day.
Want to take on the Geoje Jimaek Trail Run challenge yourself? You have the option of four scenic courses: a 14k, a 21k, a 47k and a 100k. Check out the organization’s social media for more info (Korean and some English)!
Hello you two. good writing, to the extent that I actually felt like I was there alongside you both. That brings me to the observation I would like to make, with the caveat that I don’t have so much endurance sport experience as you both do. I started doing sprint triathlons back in 2013, then decided to take on Olympic distance events too prematurely. It took me three years to work out that endurance sport is very much about all the hours of preparation and careful, sustained training-as-building-process that, ideally, should all come together on race day. The hours and effort are the core of the discipline and the try-works in which your own awareness of personal strengths and limitations are forged. Race day is all about putting those new-forged attributes and qualities to the test. So far, I reckon we can all agree on that much.
Carrie-Jane: reading your report, I was repeatedly struck by your determination to make this event fit into a narrative of continued achievement that you had pre-scripted, in the understanding that less-than-ideal preparations and a creeping fatigue/malaise would somehow be overcome by a joint will not only to complete, but possibly even to rank in this race. For example, the strategy you both followed for the opening stages of the race was premised on your intention to win or place, while the energy required to achieve this goal was going to come from a combination of positive thinking, optimism and top-up doses of similar from fellow travellers along the way. Written by a single hand, that kind of narrative presents all manner of challenges; as a co-authored script, in which one person is doing the majority of the writing, such a narrative is extremely difficult to realise. One of the qualities of your race-reporting is your ability to represent Kent’s exhausted state and misgivings before the race even started. By the time you were both out on your feet, you had certainly covered a good distance but, in triathlon terms, you clearly put too much into the bike leg and left nothing for the run. For Kent, it sounds like the entire event was misery from the get-go and the physical consequences of this kind of exertion can be more profound that we might think at the time. It certainly sounds like the tank is empty and some serious recovery is in order.
I think this race may well be the one that helps you both to realise the difference between optimism and a sunny disposition (not always useful) and disciplined, time-honed self-awareness (always useful), when it comes to individual and joint assessments of your state(s) of preparation and shared capacity to complete an endurance event. This might well have been that ‘one race too far’ in athletic terms, but I reckon it has been a salutary experience nonetheless. I say all this because I remember the misery of trying to complete my first Olympic triathlon in dreadful, stormy Irish weather. On the day of the event, strong wind and surging tide (the race director should have been shot!) conspired to add 400 metres to the swim leg, the bike was a wind tunnel exercise and the run was complicated by the fact that I could not feel my feet (a combination of the effects of a cold sea and wind chill). My hamstrings and quads locked up so many times; all I could do was walk these episodes off in the hope that I could continue. I was the 5th from last person to cross the finish line, berating myself for taking on a test of endurance that I was nowhere near prepared for. It took two more months to get the strained feeling out of my leg muscles, confirming for me a very important lesson: preparation is key, but continuous assessment will save you from doing yourself a mischief. There’s no honour lost in withdrawing from the test, when continuing will only bring you undue suffering and an even longer road to recovery.
Rest up and run slow for a couple of months. Maximum Aerobic Function running is a great way to reconstitute the body.
Gavin, thanks for this long and thoughtful reply. I definitely appreciate your input, not to mention the time you took reading and considering my report.
Now, a few of my thoughts on your thoughts!
Kent and I have spent the past three years developing in every regard: ramping up our mileage conservatively, incorporating strength training/stretching sessions and fine-tuning our rest and nutrition strategies. We not only spend significantly more time doing independent adventures (as we fondly refer to our training sessions) than organized races, we usually prefer them! There’s something really powerful about being alone in the wild and supporting oneself through difficult environmental, physical or emotional conditions. While I have yet to detail some of the most photogenic or storied of those self-supported adventures, what I have done is gotten (almost!) caught up in writing race reports. In those, I’ve detailed how, in our first two years of participating in trail ultras, we never ‘raced’. We began every race with the intention to finish, and the training to back up that goal. We would start and finish conservatively, focused on health and enjoying the happiness uniquely offered by these kinds of physical endeavors. All of this is to say that behind my mission to enjoy every race for the beauty and experience it offers is a tremendous effort in terms of training, learning about our bodies and about this sport in general. My training gives me the luxury of approaching events with what is unequivocally, for my character, a healthy mindset.
This year marks the first time that we’ve started to push the pace and challenge ourselves in appropriate settings (both on our own and at sanctioned events). Successfully doing so on several occasions can only be credited to our strong base (and that, in turn, to a passion for outdoor adventures and a desire to learn as much as possible from all the trail literature out there). It’s also been really exciting and surprising for me – I never knew I had a higher gear! And, to both of us, winning is the running itself. It’s the joy of forward motion and all the lucky factors that enable us do these things! I’ve never thought of myself as fast, preferring instead to hone my dedication and toughness – both built of hours spent on the trail. I’ve been shocked by placing in races, and while it’s certainly a delightful experience, I’ll be the first to offer the credit to the twin roles of luck and circumstance. I set out to win at Geoje, and at every race and every training session, by my own personal standards alone.
While I do practice visualization and other mental strategies, I certainly don’t create narratives in advance and then try to match reality to them. I relish new experiences of all kinds. I’m eager to grow, as a runner and as a human. This race was perfect for that, as it tested my limits in a different way than I expected. While I don’t deny that it was painful, it was an important experience because…they all are. I mentioned my ideas about perhaps harboring an unconscious thought about being able to rely on a build-up of successes (in training and racing, mind you), or a combination of that and sheer will, as one of multiple reasons that could have caused our struggles in the first place. In the aftermath of our DNF, a myriad of ways I could have helped us be better set-up for success were apparent to me – and I’ve tried to acknowledge them all. But in actuality, it was not the course we could not handle, it was not a lack of training volume/specificity, it was malnutrition compounded by exhaustion. As a self-flagellating analytical, I wanted to delve deeply into all the factors that might have played a role.
Finally, this race report is mine alone. While Kent and I run (and train and generally do life) together, this particular project is solo. I represented Kent’s inner experience during this race insofar as it was possible for me, as another person, to do. It’s entirely based on my observations and our discussions about the event after the fact. One of the particular challenges of this event and the re-telling of it was that we did have a different experience this time. Often, our experiences tend to be more similar: halving our difficulties and doubling our joys, as the saying goes. This provided a learning experience in teamwork that was not what I expected of the race but I think will be really valuable for future races – and life in general, really.
Cheers, mate! See you on the trails sometime soon?