Ahn-nyong-ha-se-yo? ~ Greetings from Korea

Dear Malaysian Running Friends,

I just want to give my respect to You for being able to do all the running that you manage to do in the hot and humid conditions all year long in Malaysia. It takes a lot of discipline and dedication to prepare for a marathon in those conditions. I know from my year in KL, where my results dropped a bit, even if I thought that I gave it some focus with early Saturday morning runs and boring treadmills sessions.

After I left Malaysia in the middle of August, for a little bit cooler destination here in Seoul, Korea, I have very quickly returned to my more normal marathon finishing times, without to much extra training sessions. It's just so much easier due to the cooler temperature.

During the last 6 weekends, I have participated in 4 marathons. Not recommendable perhaps, since the body needs a bit of recovery time in between, but it's to fun to avoid, especially in Korea where the running atmosphere is fantastic, without being able to talk Korean language. Lots of runners with big smiles over their faces.

Oct 14
Munchen Marathon (Germany) 4.32
During flight connection to Sweden ;-)

Oct 28 Chuncheon Marathon 4.09
Over 20.000 runners around a lake. The number one marathon in Korea. Beautiful place & fantastic atmosphere!

Nov 4 JoongAng Seoul Marathon 4.19
Also over 20.000 runners. Start & finish inside the Olympic Stadium.

Nov 18 Sportseoul Marathon 4.27
Cold & windy. The last 15 km's in strong headwind. Needed to do some walking.

Now, I'll better take a break from marathons, since the winter has arrived here. It was ice and below zero + hard wind, during the race yesterday. Brrrrrr ... Need to recharge my batteries.

The next big race here in Korea is Donga Seoul Marathon in March.

My overall conclusion is that you can probably add 1 minute per kilometer when you run marathons in Malaysia in comparison, due to your climate. My average results during my year in Malaysia indicates on something like 42 minutes slower finishing times there. I was struggling around and above 5 hours in most of the races. Penang Bridge was a disaster ...

So, keep up the hard work and bear in mind that you can mentally reduce a bit of time on your results when you do comparisons.

Running Regards,

Pelle

_________________________________________________
Perove Claesson
Volvo IT Korea
726-173 Hannam-dong,Yongsan-gu
140-210 Seoul
South Korea
Tel. +82 2 3780 9043
Mobile +82 10 7169 0429
Fax +82 2 3780 9272
Email: perove.claesson@volvo.com