I found out on Friday, the day that I was to leave for Jeju, that I would be able to stay until Monday, so I was psyched about that.
The rest of my teammates had left on Thursday for Jeju Island, so I was off all by my lonesome after school on Friday. I was quite nervous about getting from school at 4:30p to the gate of my flight before 7:20p - but I wasn't about to start doubting unless there was just cause.
I got to the airport, and to the correct part of the airport (domestic...I'm glad I talked with people about directing the cabbie in such a way because if he had asked me in Korean whether I needed domestic or international I wouldn't have understood...and it probably would have been a big mess), with ease. Furthermore, with my exceptionally large carry-on bag with numerous liquids which were not in a small ziplock bag (such as face wash and shampoo, etc), I made it through airport security and to the gate in record time. And when I say record time, I mean RECORD TIME. I have no idea how this happened, but I went from hailing a taxi in Myeong-Jang Dong at 4:39p to sitting at my departure gate at 5:13p... wow.
The flight to Jeju was really short - after only 25 or 30 minutes or so of being in the air they made an announcement that we would soon be landing. Once I got to Jeju, I hopped on the bus that my Coach had directed me to take in his written directions, and then called to inform him of my arrival. I rode the bus for about 60 minutes, and then met some of my teammates to do some food shopping at an Emart.
Then we went back to the hotel - Dong-a Marathon Center - for some snacking, drinking and merriment. This hotel was awesome - and as you can probably guess from its name, it is somewhat of a sports hotel. The pictures below are of a special room dedicated to marathon craziness. I thought that was pretty cool :)
Also, there was a running trail right outside the hotel where a race is held....annually? I'm not sure. All I know is I ran one loop of it on Monday and I had to stop to rest because it was the most hilly course I have ever run in my life. Dirt trail, steep ups and downs, such that there was rubber mats all over the place so that if you were running at normal speed you wouldn't kill yourself. Crazy. Crazy awesome, actually. But this facility also accomodates many other types of athletes. While there are two tracks on hotel grounds, there are also a few soccer fields, a stadium (inside of which I did not get to see actually but I'm assuming soccer fields and a track at least), an in-line skating rink, another type of rink that...I can't guess what it was for...maybe in-line skating practice-court... a basketball court, and a few other fields with purposes of which I cannot offer an explanation. One looked somewhat like an archery field but with a more fortress-like feel. Hard to explain. In short, this place was AMAZING.
And there were so many athletes staying at the facility - apparently athletes get a discount to stay at this place. It 's awesome. Amongst other athletes I'm sure, there was a Korean soccer team staying there...that was a nice distraction at the times when we were waiting to take off for our rides... :)
Anyway, the team had ridden 90km on Friday, a task of which I was very jealous, so they were pretty tired. Friday night after I arrived we enjoyed some beer and various fruits, and then headed off to bed around 11:15p. I can't understand how they could stay up so late after riding 6 hours with 10 youth triathletes, because if that were me I would want at least 8 solid hours of sleep, and we had to wake up at 7am. So they didn't get to bed until at least 11:30p, I'm sure, if not later. I was tired myself staying up that late and I had taken that day off from exercise! Crazy.
On Saturday, we had breakfast, and then loaded everything into the two cars (Coach had brought his van on the ferry with all of our bikes and gear inside, and then they rented another van to house the support crew and the sustanence, etc) to drive to the finish of Friday's bike course. We did this because the objective of our riding routes was to make a complete lap around Jeju Island, which is about 200km (more or less depending on the routes taken). Anyway, Saturday, we started in the parking lot of the World Cup Stadium, did some warming up, and then set out for an 80km ride. The weather was fantastic, a bit chilly at times, but still sunny and wonderful. I have never been to Hawaii, but I would bet that the weather and the scenery in Jeju is very similar to that of Hawaii (which is somewhat of an informed conjecture due to word of mouth). If nothing else, the scenery is nothing short of breathtaking.
After finishing Saturday's ride, we drove back to the hotel, had dinner, rested (well, I rested), and then met around 10:30p to drink and snack with the elder teammembers and the 4 mothers that had come along to support the children and the team with various logistics. The support group there was great - riding with the kids was Coach, myself, and another coach of the youth-team who I will refer to as 'H', who is a student at PNU, the team's mechanic, who is also a student, another of the youth-team's coaches who is a graduate student at PNU, and the four mothers. With all of these people, we were able to provide enough on-the-road support for the kids through accompanied/sometimes-assisted cycling as well as two vehicular-transports to ride both in front of and behind the pack of cyclists to provide a great safety-valve (also, Coach's car had a siren...hahaha...which is both great for safe-riding through what could be somewhat unsafe conditions such as riding through red lights or driving slowly on very narrow roads such that other cars and buses might get agitated if they were not aware of a traveling entourage of aspiring triathletes, as well as scaring packs of barking dogs away which were intent on trying to chase us...haha).
We woke up Sunday to the dreary glisten of raindrops decorating the hotel grounds, which soon transpired into a full out torrent. Needless to say, the morning head-out was a no-go. So we had breakfast, and then I retired to my room for respite due to the failure of obtaining my necessary 8-hours of rest the night before. I think the kids (and my Coach and the other elders) played ping pong. Haha. Around 12:30pm, I awoke from my slumber from a call to my hotel room (for my cell phone battery had died as a result of leaving a piece of my charger attached to my computer...bah), and we went out for lunch. During this excursion, the weather steadily improved, and once lunch was finished we had a wonderful day at our disposal. So we rushed back to the hotel, changed out clothes, and headed out to complete the loop of the Island.
However, on the way to our starting point for the day, the weather decided to pull a u-turn, and while the torrential rains did not return, there was still a decent party of showers and wind. So we sucked it up and headed out to finish the 4okm.
As a wonderful surprise, this day's course was mostly up-hill (or at least mostly inclined), so this fact combined with young tired-legs and frustrated-spirits from the weather added up to me riding about 70% of this course with one hand on my bike and one hand on the backs of various triathetes, assisting their ascents (as well as some descents and flat-road riding too). I was...pretty tired after 2 hours of that, let me tell you. 70% of 2 hours pushing kids on a bike is nothing to scoff at (although it was definitely do-able - and I was actually glad to be able to help in this way (as I helped in a similar manner on Saturday but not to the same extent) because Coach payed for my plane ticket, my hotel room, and, along with the mothers, for all of our meals during the trip...so I was very very glad to be able to put my appreciation into hard labor...haha. But it definitely wasn't just me pushing...Coach and H were pushing as well, but since I took up the rear I was basically the head pusher).
Oh - haha - also - one of the kids' brakes was not working so hot towards the end of the ride...so...in addition to pushing him up the hills and on some of the flats, I had to assist him in stopping at our final destination, which consisted of us riding downhill, still in the rain, with me grabbing his jersey with my right hand, braking with my left hand, turning off the road to the right into a somewhat gated-area, while also clipping out of my cleats so I wouldn't fall myself. It was awesome. Haha.
Sunday night we celebrated with some great food, and then once again had some drinks and snacks post-dinner with the mothers and the other support crew. While this was very fun (and good for my listening practice, although since I was so tired I couldn't pay attention as much as I would have liked), it made me kind of sad, because I realized that I could never truly be like a Korean. It seems that Korean culture is somewhat centered on drinking and celebrating, and while this is great and fun and important to appreciate the people who have helped and to appreciate the good times, it is also culture (or so it seems and so I have been told by some Koreans) for everyone to stay until it someone decides that it is time to go. Aka, if you are tired (at least if you are a Korean), it is not good manners to get up and excuse yourself. I think this is partially due to the culture of respect to one's elders - aka if you are younger and are tired, basically you have to suck it up. So for me, I cannot live a life like that. I mean, I know in normal life drinking everynight is not the custom, although some of my Korean friends do go out and drink sometimes a few nights a week (not just drink, food is usually involved too) with work people or with 'seniors', a title which in the States we would label as 'friends who happen to be older'. And thus in Korea, when you are out with your seniors, the cultural rules of respect always apply, and so if you are tired or even sick, it is not really acceptable to leave, or even to refuse an invitation, by someone your elder (I can say this with some knowledge for a Korean friend told me this...so while it may not apply to all circumstances it definitely applies to some). So, as an athlete who takes training seriously (and who has recently decided that after IM China I am about 75% sure that I am going to set my sites on the Olympics for 2012, and if that doesn't happen then I will reset them for 2016), I cannot adhere to such a culture. Rest is so important for me - for my body, and for my mind. And while I could go out and have a small glass of beer or soju when my friends or co-workers go out and then leave at an early hour, there is no way that I could even spend one night a week staying up until 2 or 3 or 5am eating and drinking. There is just no way. (I also discovered after talking to my Coach about how much sleep the average Korean gets (which varies but 6 hours is probably accurate if not generous) that most high school students get 4-5 hours of sleep a night....! Coach himself said he gets about 6...which I was baffled by considering he is a triathlete.) So it made me really sad to know that if I wanted to be really close with these people - with Korean people - I wouldn't be able to, unless they were serious athletes. I say this because when I spend time with my friends, and they are doing things that I cannot do but I wish I could (although my greater wish is of a different nature so its not like I ultimately regret not being able to do those things), it would create too much dissonance, and might result in me not accomplishing my goals if I decided to spend some nights staying out late and drinking out of the desire to be with my friends. Which I'm sure sounds harmless to do once in a while, but if one has goals like mine, I really believe (at least for me, because my ticket to success does not lay in perfect genes (although I was given some pretty great ones, don't get me wrong) or amazing talent) that these goals can only be realized through diligence and perseverance, which for me include staying in the zone at all times, aka never having to have the desire that I was doing something else. If I can safely plan going out to celebrate something and not feel conflicted about it, then that is fine, but if I feel conflicted, then that confliction starts to chip away at my structure of mental perseverance that I have so carefully constructed, and, like an addict falling off the wagon, something small like that can have a very detrimental effect on my final goal, if it is one of a very ambitious nature (and I don't mean to disrespect or understate falling-off-the-wagon, because I do intend the seriousness of this comparison...for because my personality is so extreme, the comparison rings true).
Anyway. :) So since we stayed up really late Sunday (me until 2am, although Coach asked me at 12:30a if I wanted to go to bed because I had asked him that morning how much sleep he needs because I was so surprised that they had stayed up late drinking when we had to wake up early to ride the next morning, but I said I was ok because I knew it would be somewhat rude to leave early, especially since the other athletes my age were still there and were somewhat bound by culture to stay even though they were also exhausted; but when I started dazing out at 2am he said I should go to bed, at which point I didn't object, even though the others were still remaining), we did not wake up early as I thought we would in order to get some quality riding in; rather, we slept, and at about 11:30 we decided what we were going to do for the day. Coach asked me whether I wanted to exercise or go on a trip, and while I would have definitely said exercise if we had woken up earlier and had the day to ride, I said he should choose, because I knew he hadn't slept much (he had had to wake up at 6am to help the mothers and the kids make their early flight). He suggested taking a trip, so the four of us who remained went to do some sightseeing. It was really fun, although it would have been nicer if the memory card on my camera wasn't full as a result of not deleting pictures from previous trips and then caused my camera to go into stupid-mode where it wouldn't let me delete any of the pictures...haha - but it was still beautiful and really fun.
After getting back from sightseeing and lunch, Coach went to nap, I went for a run, and an hour and a half later we left for the airport.
The elder youth-coach and the mechanic, the only other two remaining with us on Jeju, stayed with the car as Coach and I got out at the airport, for they would take the car back on the ferry. We said goodbye, and Coach and I went to get our tickets. However, my airport experience this time was not as simple as the first, for apparently the airlines entered the wrong information for my flight, and had made my reservation at 9:00am that morning instead of 5:20p (even though the time of the reservation that they gave me was 5:20p). So. Thank goodness Coach was there is all I have to say. So, with my phone dead, I was a little nervous, because there wasn't any available seating for the next two flights to Busan, and if I couldn't fly back that night, I wasn't in a position to be able to contact my school. So, luckily, we found somewhere to charge my phone while Coach called the travel agent to figure out what went wrong. After some rearranging, they were able to squeeze us onto a flight at 8:40p (thank goodness!), so I didn't have to make an embarrassing and nerve-wracking call to my school to explain why my personal vacation would be extending for an extra day.
Anyway. While the trip gave me a bit of a bittersweet realization, it was still amazing. I had such a great time with my Coach and the team and the kids and the mothers - they are such great people, and I am so lucky to be a part of it all. It also helped to inspire me and my future goals, and to help get my mind back on track to what is important to me and what I have to do and to sacrifice to accomplish the things that I want (not just in athletics, but in life as well). I love Jeju!
Now, I should do some work... :)
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