Treadmill Tuesday: Impossible is nothing!

"Impossible is Nothing." The bright yellow letters screamed at me from the shiny black jacket of the girl in front of me.I was 15 minutes into my first ever 5km race and I still hadn't seen the 1km marker. I wanted to cry. Usually I'm well past 1km after 10 minutes of running on the treadmill. I knew outside running would be different from treadmill running, but this was ridiculous!

Saturday's race had been an impulsive decision. When I started running a year ago I had promised myself I would do a 5km race at some stage this year. Then I decided to go back to South Africa and I started looking for a race close to my departure date. I decided on May 7th in Daegu, but when a group of my friends signed up for a race at the same spot, a month earlier, I was easy to convince. I thought it could be a kind of "test run" (no pun intended) for the BIG RACE.

We arrived in Daegu on Friday night and were amazed at our hotel's big screen TV, Jacuzzi and massage chair. It was great! On Saturday morning we had peanut butter and banana smoothies and stretched to inspiring music (Who dares to call "Eye of the Tiger" cheezy?) The registration area was just outside of our hotel. K-pop was loudly blaring from speakers and Koreans dressed in denim shorts, jeans, sparkly shirts and some other random outfits, started showing up. The organizer thought it necessary to motivate me by promising me water and Choco-pies at the finishing line.

After a group warm-up session, we were sent off and from the start I knew this was going to be way harder than cruising on the treadmill to some happy tunes. I had trouble breathing and my hamstring felt the need to remind me of its presence.

I had a feeling this was going to be a huge disappointment. Maybe I should have waited a bit longer. Maybe I should have trained harder. Maybe I shouldn't have had that glass of wine in the jacuzzi. Maybe I should make my peace with the fact that I am not a sporty person. Maybe I should just accept that I will always be the fat kid and go hide in the corner with a slab chocolate and a tub of Ice-cream...And then I saw the very familiar Adidas slogan, followed by the 2km marker! TWO KILOMETERS!! Whoo-Hoo!! Somehow I had missed seeing the 1km marker.

With Koreans on their early Saturday morning stroll cheering me on (either by hi-5, a smile, a thumbs up or the very Korean "Fighting / Hwaiting") I made it to the 2,5km mark, turned around, ran back, posed for a picture and crossed the finishing line in 39:95 minutes.That is 3:22 off of my last recorded treadmill time.

I shed an emotional tear, of course, and then sat down with a glass of water, to catch my breath. When the other foreigners started coming in, they gave us some makgeoli (Rice wine) and Kimchi. They made a nasty spelling error with my name on my certificate, but I didn't even bother to change it. It was a very Korean thing to do. It had my time on it and I got a medal. Not bad for a former fat kid.

Posing for a post-race picture.