Trekking Barris: September 2017

Seoul

After the race we took a train to Seoul and spent two nights at the Dragonhill Lodge - which was perfect because they have a Pizza Hut in the hotel. Yum! In the two days I ate my own 2 pizzas!

Seoul is a beautiful city surrounded by mountains and with a river that runs through. The people were extremely friendly and helpful and many spoke English was very nice. We spent an entire day sightseeing taking the metro to the Jogyesa temple downtown and then walking toward the palaces. When we were close to the palace a fellow IM athlete recognized us and Bella's temporary IM tattoo on her neck and invited us up to his miscrosoft office to see the palace view.

After seeing the sights we headed toward Itaewon and the international area to check out the shops. Korea is famous for its skin care products. The girls loved it because there were a lot of 'try me' and 'tester'. We finished the day with eye makeup, cheeks and nails done!

This old bike box got a lot of stares (and laughs) from other athletes - could this have been the first bike box model? No wheels and heavy, and wouldn't fit into a taxi in Seoul making the 1.7 mile walk from the train station to the hotel tough.

Cute Korean kids that also thought Morgan and Bella were cute!

Fellow athlete showing us the palace view from his office

Korean socks to minimize blisters from flip flops - very Japanese!

The last day Morgan woke up early with me to hit a Korean bath house. What a treat - hot, cold and mineral pools with jets and high pressure water falls to get the knots out of our bodies. Fortunately the Koreans aren't as anti-tattoo as the Japanese as we both forgot about Morgan's temp IM tattoos on each butt check!

Professional IM Photos

Race day and Awards photos

Awesome Announcer and Sasebo crew!

Jeff says I'm in the photo - can you find me?

Run girls!

Bella's favorite part of the race - was the cheering on the run

Yay Mom! I debated getting an 'Ironmom' shirt but was worried everyone's first assumption was I had a 18 year old kid that finished the race. Ha!

Jeff's favorite part of the race - seeing me finish strong

Ironman legend Julie Moss who was there to cheer me on throughout the run! What an inspiration she is.

Receiving Award at the awards ceremony - bows and congratulations

Korea - Anything is Possible

We had a fun, memorable and exciting Ironman vacation in South Korea. The girls rocked their Ironkid competition and had a blast hanging out with Chloe and Axel (fellow racer Tim's kids). Jeff was an amazing photographer, bike Sherpa, pre- and post-race masseuse and biggest fan. My training buddy Brandi not only led all the workouts all season, but then calmed my nerves before the race many times reminding me to not worry and then pumped up my tires before the race. Yes - I'm a terrible bike mechanic and was really worried about flatting.

The race was awesome! Started off foggy and we were able to self-seed. I tried to get as close to the front to start. Still managed to get a few people swimming over me and getting aggressive, but came out of the water 2nd female (actually with the fastest swim time taking into consideration the start). It was so foggy that part way I couldn't see the course. Jeff said they came very close to calling it and pulling us out of the water - glad they didn't. Morgan's highlight of my race was seeing me emerge form the fog one of the first people out of the water and hop on my bike.

The bike course was beautiful and generally flat with a few small climbs. Getting out of the water quick (in 1:05 for the 2.4 mile swim) enabled me to be ahead of the pack on the bike. There were some Korean drummers on the course, as we rode up toward the mountains in Jirisan National Park, along a river and past rice fields and Korean villages. Gorgeous! My bike was good and even the announcer joked that I did all of it on an old aluminum frame! Actually everyone had top of the line gear, race wheels and aero bars. 5:57 averaging 30 km/hr. The only thing that was hard on the bike was there was no mile/kilometer markers and I'm probably the only person that doesn't have a smart strava watch or even a bike computer! At the end I thought we were close, but instead we sailed past the transition area about 6 miles and then had to loop back. Also the furthest I'd ever ridden in my life was ~102 miles, so 112 was another personal record.

Then came the run which I had told my self if I made it off the bike without a flat, I would be happy. Happy I was to be close and just a marathon ahead. Ironman legend Julie Moss was there to cheer me on with every turn. It was great and so inspirational. She was telling me I had great form and to keep my nutrition up. I was telling her it was first my IM and had to ask her how many kilometers a marathon was! Wish we didn't skip the mandatory meeting - but there wasn't time with Ironkids.

I felt good the whole time considering the effort and really enjoyed it. The woman that took first in my AG, Jessica Jacobs was retired pro who took first. She only beat me by 33 minutes and 38 seconds . The 2nd place woman was from Japan and I came in 3rd with a total time of 10:56.59. I was not only the fastest female swimmer but had the fastest run time with 3:44 which would have been a Boston Qualifier.

My run was surprisingly fast as I literally walked each aid station. They were spaced 2 km apart which meant I walked 21 times! The run was perfect in that I would run hard for 2 km. Stop drink - coke, water and eat - watermelon or banana.

Great race and day for me! Couldn't have been possible without my training buddy Brandi, family support for letting me getting in all my workouts and Jeff and his wonderful massages. Jeff's massage business Jelimobe is really successful and taking off. "Anything is Possible."

Ironkids Morgan and Bella

Morgan and Bella loved participating in Ironkids and did a great job. They both over swam the swim course, because the instructions were in Korean, by swimming across the pull vice just around the people in the middle, but then made up for it on the fast run. Bella's age group only required them practically to get wet and walk in the pool, so all the spectators and announcers were impressed when Bella not only swam to the other side but preceded to swim the entire perimeter. :-) Afterward she had people coming up to congratulate her as the true winner! Morgan also overshot the course, but then ran all out and came in 2nd for the girls.

The announcer, Whit, was the person who announced the Japan 70.3 last year. We recognized him and immediately he was interested in knowing our names and everywhere we went he had something nice to say about our family. It was really neat, cool and motivating. He actually told Jeff before my race that I looked like a swimmer and runner and predicted my finish at 11:02 (just 6 minutes slower than my race). Not sure how we can be so close...