Keeping south of the north

There are plenty of places I haven’t been to yet it sometimes seems difficult to find somewhere to go on a vacation. The last year to Japan exceeded my expectation so feeling inspired I started looking for similar destinations. I my eyes fell on Korea. The southern variant, not the northern.

I had initially planned a trip but afterwards I realized that the weekend before arrival there would be a marathon in Seoul. I looked into it and suddenly I was the owner of a spot in the JTBC Seoul Marathon. Woops. I had my arrival flight moved and booked an extra hotel in the city.

28th of October – 6th of November

I’m flying out late on the 28th and arriving in the evening the next day, so I felt it would be important to find a hotel that was easily accessible from the airport. But due to the marathon going from west to east of the city I also wanted to find a hotel that had direct connections to both start and finish. To my relief it was actually possible to find such a hotel, sitting at a station near the central station. This means I will have more than 8 full days in Seoul by myself, exploring (eating), running and recovering and basically just relaxing and taking it all in.

 

7th – 10th of November

I’ll be joining the travel group in the afternoon and we’ll spend the first day in Seoul before travelling to Gyeongju by train, a city on the east coast. The city is the old capital of South Korea and we will be introduced to, among plenty other things, Bulguksa Temple, a UNESCO site.

 

11th – 13th of November

We will continue further south along the coast to Busan, passing though several small villages along the way. We will then return to Seoul to spend a day visiting the DMZ.

 

14th – 18th of November

From Seoul we will drive down though the western part of the country that apparently the greener part. We will spend nights in Jeonju and Yeosu before ending up on Jeju, a small island south of the mainland.

 

19th – 22nd of November

Final goodbye with the group before flying back to Seoul and spending 2 nights in the central part of the city to take in the last impressions before I head home after another – hopefully – lovely trip.

With Japan still in recent memory I am looking forward to see the similarities and differences compared to this trip. Looking at the itinerary it’s clear I will definitely have enough time in Seoul when there, but with all the spare time I have in the beginning I will have plenty of opportunity to do other stuff if I already start tiring of the city. I doubt, it though. We will see.

10th – 13th of October – Eindhoven

There were no flights directly to Eindhoven so instead I flew into Amsterdam and then took the train 1½ hours to Eindhoven with a change in Rotterdam. It made getting back and forth a bit more complicated but the trains were on time and it was a comfortable ride, so there was no issue. Arriving in Eindhoven it took less than 10 minutes to locate my hotel where I checked in and claiming my room that turned out to overlook the finishing area of the race, and soon after I left to go to the Technical University where I picked up my bib and shirt. As it was getting late and dark I wandered about for a bit and realized that the city seemed to enjoy Italian and Japanese food, so I ended up in a ramen place where I started off with some Takoyaki before having a delicious bowl of ramen. Not having any desserts (what?!) I left and had a quick visit to a kiosk to bring some back home to the hotel. You can’t have dinner without dessert when you’re on vacation!

 

A striking photo.

The next day I had a walk outside the center of the city and realized how correct it was when reading on travelling sites saying that Eindhoven isn’t really a tourist destination. I therefore returned to the center where I spent time visiting the DAF and Philips museum. The former had a bunch of vehicles presented from throughout the history of the company and while there was no real walkthrough of the history of the company itself the descriptive plaques for the vehicles combined gave a fairly good overview of the company, too. The Philips museum focused on the company’s foundation, the light bulb, the later years’ development of hospital technology and more recently the implementation of AI. The average consumer only see a fraction of what Philips do – and the home appliance divisions have mostly been sold off or split into other companies; focus now is health technology (ultrasound, respiratory care, radiography and lots of other fancy stuff). They have also helped found – among other things – ASML which is one of the world’s main suppliers to semiconductor industries around the world, supplying equipment for chip production. It’s some serious high-tech stuff, and together with numerous other high tech industries in the city it has made Eindhoven a major tech hubs in Europe.

One of the vehicles that participated in the Paris-Dakar rally. 

 

Derp. 

The starting area was only a 10 minute walk from the hotel, on the opposite side of the station, on Montgomerylaan. While the street was wide they only used on side for the runners which meant that the starting area was stretched quite a bit. But all was good and we were off on time – just before the starting line we were squeezed together to half width and while annoying and stopping the flow it meant that it helped spreading the runners over a larger distance, loosening up the group and not having a too crowded start. 

The course generally consisted of long stretches with not too many turns which meant it was easy to get into a zen mood without having to focus on constant making turns and positioning yourself optimally. It wasn’t until around 30km we started making more regular turns. Going north on Montgomerylaan we made our first turn down Winston Churchilllaan, circling around Luytelaer before returning west and going up along Henri Dunantpark. From here we headed west until we ran south down along the airport until reaching the High Tech Campus which we circled (the place seemed huge!) before taking a quick nip down into Voldijn before returning north and finishing in the city center, almost right outside my hotel.

The cheering was limited along the course, you met them in groups near stations and intersections, but getting back into the city the energy was high. Also, the last couple of hundred meters we merged with the half-marathon course which suddenly made otherwise nice conditions very cramped. It was manageable considering the relative short distance and you could distract yourself with the onlookers. Unfortunately I didn’t quite avoid the hand-on-shoulder push-you-aside runner a few meters before the finish line – hurray for you, you gained 3 seconds! (he turned out to be a double-dick as he was also the type that just completely stopped the second he crossed the line).

I managed to finish in 3:53:43, a very respectable time, my 4^th fastest marathon time. I came in as 2340 out of 4356 overall (top 53,72%), 2065 out of 3635 men (top 56,81%) and 331 out of 501 M40 (top 66,07%). A surprisingly fast group of runners I would have thought my relative result would have been better. I was a very flat course, though, with 48m up and a little less down over the entire course.

Getting back to the hotel was a completely different challenge, though. I could look right up at it but we got channeled past, split up in half and full runners, and we, the full marathoners had out exit in front of the station. Getting back to the hotel was wild. It was crowded getting out because of all the +1s waiting for runners, and then getting across 18 Septemberplein was nearly impossible as that was where the half marathoners exited, and that was a significantly bigger group of people with their +1s waiting. The down Hermanus Boexstraat which turned out to be the last stretch of the half marathon meaning the sidewalks were packed. It took me close to an hour walking the 1km back to the hotel. It was absolutely maddening.

Had a shower (it was a bathtub with a shower – it’s never fun getting into one of them after a run) before going out and had a pile of fries before settling in in my room and only moving again to go out for dinner.

The following day was spent in the hotel before leaving for the station and taking the trains back to Amsterdam and flying home.

Full album can be seen here.

18th – 21st of September – Oslo

Flying into Oslo it was easy to grab the express train into the center and from there it was a short walk to my hotel. The hotel was intentionally chosen as it was less than 5 minutes from the city hall in front of which the marathon would start and finish. It turned out the hotel entrance was facing the warm-up area which was an extension of the starting pens. I could barely be any closer.

Checking in I left and went to the expo – located in the starting area – and picked up my shirt and bib. Here I also met with my sister and her husband where we had a short talk and planned for meeting for dinner the evening before and after the run. She would be running the half marathon, starting 4 hours after the marathoners would be sent off.

Floating saunas. 

 

Art installation called "Eyes". I respectfully disagree. Those are not eyes.

On the Friday – the day before the run – I went for a walk in The Vigeland Park – a park filled with sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. The sculptures were weird, funny, a lot going on, but what they all had in common were fantastically expressive faces. You could spend hours looking at the individual statues, the fountain and the monolith just to be sure you got all the details. 

 

Haven't we all at some point been tempted to do this?

 

Standing in the car shop Carl realized he had misunderstood his friend 

when he said that he had gotten a new car for his two kids.

 

Having the marathon starting at 0900 the following morning I strolled out of the hotel around 0830 and walked maybe 100 meters and found my spot in the starting area. I had registered my finishing time around 3:50 and my start group covered 3:45-4:15. Standing maybe ¼ from the front I was therefore surprised seeing both the 4:00 and 4:15 pacers set up in front of me. Oh, well, I would just spend the first few km to pass them and put some distance to them.

The first groups were sent off on time and a few minutes later I also crossed the starting line. I started aiming for passing the pacers and the groups that were amassing around them, but I realized that the course was surprisingly narrow – especially in the beginning. We started west from the city hall with an early turn to the left and zigzag through a quiet residential area before coming out on Munkedamsveien followed by Drammensveien and after a bit turning right onto Halvdan Svartes Gate. From here we circled almost the entire Vigeland Park before coming back the same way and reaching Drammensveien we turned right and turned towards the water, turned east and ran along the E18 until we could turn onto Tjuvholmen, through Aker Brygge, pass the city hall and the start/finish area, past Akershus Fortress before turning up trough the central part of the city with quite a few sharp turns, reaching Pilestredet, Holbergs Gate and Sofies Gate before doing a u-turn on Martinus Lørdahls plass and taking the same way back (with the exception of circling inside Bislett Stadium) until past Pilestredet where we did a different zigzag and ending up in front of the town hall. And then doing it all once more as that was only a half marathon.

The course was generally narrow; most of the time we had half a street while we parallel with E18 stayed on the side walk and bike path. It also meant that it could be difficult at times to pass other runners, especially in the beginning when we were all crammed together. Also, the course was not flat and consisted mainly of two hills; the first from about 3km up to halfway around the Vigeland Park from 5 to 60m and down again towards the water, and then again from Akershus Fortress at 5m to when we did the u-turn before entering the stadium at 45m. Due to the layout and the visibility of the road ahead the second hill fell significantly worse than the first, even if it was smaller. But it helped knowing that you would be running down again the same way so you had something to look forward to. 

Despite the hills and narrowness I still ended up finishing in 3:55:21. That put me as 2340 out of 4356 overall (top 53,72%), 2065 out of 3635 men (top 56,81%) and 331 out of 501 M40 (top 66,07%). I’ll admit I was surprised how slow I was compared to the rest of the runners, but I assume it’s because Norwegians are outdoorsy people and therefore generally not in bad shape. And regardless, I’m still happy with my result, getting (another) sub-4 hours run.

Instead of the more common procedure of entering your race number and then getting your photos in return I had to upload a selfie. I didn’t have high hopes for the success of finding that many, but within seconds it came back with almost 200 (198 to be exact) photos, all with me in varying degree of in focus. I’ll admit: I was pretty impressed with both the response time and quality of some of the shots.

I made it just in time to see my sister off and give her a bit of heads up on the course before walking the long 200m back to my hotel and had a much needed shower. One of the last zigs (or was it one of the zags?) on the course passed by 50 meters from the hotel entrance, at the end of the street opposite of the starting area, so I managed to get out and cheer my sister along when she passed by, and then wobbled my way down to the finishing area and saw her finish, too.

Before meeting my sister and her husband for dinner I managed to meet with a friend I met on my trip to Madagascar and hadn’t seen since. We met at a wine bar (where she was already meeting with other friends) where we had a glass of wine and had a quick catch up before I continued to the Japanese and Chinese restaurant which turned out to be just around the corner. I am pretty sure my slow walk afterwards wasn’t due to the marathon but rather due to the amount of food eaten. It was a delicious izakaya-style restaurant. 

 

View of the waterfront from the Akershus Fortress.

My flight the following day wasn’t until the afternoon so I had a slow walk around town and checked out the Akershus Fortress before heading back to the airport.

Full album can be seen here.

21st – 24th of August – Helsinki

Getting to Helsinki was just as unproblematic as last time and the train connections from the airport to the center was equally easy. The airport and city center are on a circular route approximately same distance regardless of direction so it’s easy to just get on to the first train at the airport because you will end up in the center in the end.

Having been doing a more focused sightseeing the last time I visited I chose to take things a bit more relaxed on arrival. I checked into my hotel a few minutes from the main station and having settled in I decided to go to the runners expo at Merisatama to pick up my pack. A 1-2km walk from my hotel to get to the expo was absolutely fine, and downhill for the majority part, something I was trying to ignore as the start and finish of the marathon was located in the same area. 

Walking along Töölö bay.

The following day, the Friday, the day before the marathon, I had a walk around the waterfront, starting from Merisatama and walking counter-clockwise, passing by the Russian orthodox cathedral, had a short walk around Tervasaari, circled Töölö bay before reaching Helsinki Central Library Oodi which was quite the construction in and of itself. A large building that seemed to have been twisted a bit before being placed. I was impressed by what the place had to offer outside the usual reading materials; board games, instruments, music studios, gaming rooms (large TV and 3-5 gaming consoles almost completely sound proof), multiple 3d printers of various sizes, workshops and so on. Walking around I didn’t even realize it was almost up against the main train station, so leaving again it turned out it was just a short walk back to the hotel and getting ready for dinner.

On the terrace of the Helsinki Central Library Oodi.

 

The Helsinki Central Library Oodi.

On the day of the race the halfmarathoners were sent off at 0810 while the marathoners would have to wait until 0845. Not really an issue – it meant that arriving in good time I got to see the halfmarathoners leave and making room for us and our start. And on time we crossed the starting line, following the same route as I yesterday following the waterfront counter counter-clockwise, past the ferry terminals, the Russian orthodox cathedral and continuing north crossing the bridge to Merihaka leaving the city center. Here the half- and full marathon courses split; while the half marathoners turned left we continued north/east. 

Running along the waterfront with the Russian orthodox cathedral in the background. 

Here we did a 21km long circle, passing past and/or through Sompasaari, Kalasatama, Kulosaari, Fastholma, Roihupelto, Viikki Campus (Helsinki university), Viikinmäki, Oulunkylä, between Metsälä and Käpylä, past Alppila before reaching Siltasaari and crossing the bridge back to towards the city center. This bridge was a few 100 meters west of the beforementioned bridge where we left the halfmarathoners, and crossing this bridge we joined them again on the rest of the course. From here we passed by the central station, up along Töölö bay before returning back south and passing Leppäsuo, circled Jätkäsaari, went through Hietalahti, ran out on Munkkisaari and did a u-turn to get the correct final distance (the halfmarathoners had an extra 100m before they could do their u-turn) before coming back to Merisatama and crossing the finish line (one may even say the Finnish finish line).

The course itself was… ok. It was plenty interesting when running around in the city, but as soon we left the more densely built areas it got pretty dull, especially when we were brought through the more industrial areas. We did come through some more green spaces but you would usually have train tracks right next to you. There wasn’t much cheering along the course outside the center unless you were passing by a station or going through an intersection. There were very few sharp corners outside the city, though, which made things a bit more enjoyable. Overall it did feel very much like a Norse god [1]; the street at the starting/finishing area was blocked off for us runners, but it didn’t take long before we were stuck to sidewalks and pedestrian paths shared with normal people. It ended up not being as big an issue as I had expected – particularly at the start where it seemed that everybody agreed on the pace and barely anyone either much faster or much slower, so the running traffic flowed quite nicely. But still... I guess I expected something bigger after having experienced Copenhagen’s and Stockholm’s setup. Also, after the race, instead of getting a mail from a third-party race photography company that linked to photo packages, prices, and previews of photos, we just got a link to all the albums the day’s photographers had filled with photos and then it was up to ourselves to go through the thousands of photos to see if you had been captured. Seemed very low tech and it took a while to find myself (but it also gave me the chance of seeing that I was by far not the most tired-looking person that day!).

Being a marathon in the capital I was surprised to see how small the run was, with only 2315 people running the full distance. With a finishing time of 3:56:31 I came in as no. 877 (top 37,88%), 726 out of 1648 men (top 44,05%) and 163 out of 324 M40 (top 50,31). With nice cool dry weather and app. 220m up and down the weather and road conditions were nice, and overall, despite my reservations, it was a good run.

I made it back to the hotel in one piece and kicked back until it was time to get dinner, where I ended up at a German restaurant and devoured a winer schnitzel and a generously sized waffle. All in all, a good day.

Full album can be seen here.

[1] Loki… Low-key. Get it? Because they sound the same… It was low-key but it also sounds like the name of the Norse God Loki… Get it? Get it….? … Sigh… Never mind.