Hello and welcome to bonus episode number 143 of the Q -Lips English podcast. How's it going?
My name's Andrew. I am your Canadian English study buddy and it's great to be back here with you for another week.
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So for everybody who's new to our bonus episode series, let me quickly explain what it's all about.
Every week I just hang out with you here and I tell you some stories from my everyday life And I hope that by listening to these stories, you will be able to improve your English communication skills and English fluency.
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Okay, with that out of the way, with that being said, it's time to jump in and get started with this week's story.
And today, guys, I am going to recap my experience running in the 2025 Soul Marathon, which happened about three weeks ago.
So three weeks ago, I ran the Soul Marathon. This was my second time running it.
and i'm going to tell you all about that experience in today's episode i'll get into the nitty -gritty details and i have to say it was a really pleasant experience i had a really great time and i am passionate about running as many long -term q -lips listeners know so i hope my passion and my enthusiasm for this topic will come across in today's story so without any further ado let's get right to it here we go so the Seoul marathon happens every year in March and it's one of the biggest marathon events here in South Korea where I currently live and it's a great race it's really well organized it's
really fun to run it's a great course it starts in downtown Seoul and then sneaks through downtown Seoul.
You spend about the first 21 kilometers actually running through the streets of the downtown area of Seoul before kind of making your way toward the eastern part, the northeastern part of the city, and then crossing the Han River, which divides the city into two.
Seoul is divided into the northern part and the southern part by the Han River that flows through the middle of city and then you end in a place called jamsil there's a big stadium there that was actually built for the 1988 olympics and while you don't get to run into the stadium though i've heard that they've done that in the past now they don't do that i guess there are maybe too many runners so they don't do that anymore but you do end right outside of the jamsil stadium area so you get to to do this tour of downtown Seoul, of eastern Seoul, and then ending up toward the southern part of the city
as you run 42 kilometers through that area.
So it's a really great course.
It's really well organized.
It's a premier event in the country.
And there are many, many participants, tons of Korean participants, of course, but also some elite participants.
There's probably probably uh 30 to 50 elite racers and even some really really fast pro racers that come in from the african countries like kenya and ethiopia these countries that are really you know the fastest where the fastest athletes are are from so it's a cool event to be able to run with some pros and to be able to run with so many other runners from around korea from around the country and there are two different distances that you can choose to run.
There is a full marathon event and there is a 10K running event as well.
The 10K event happens in a different location.
So I actually never saw any of the 10K runners.
I was just running with the full marathon people, but there are the two distance lengths that you can choose from if you choose to run in the sole marathon. So I signed up for the full.
as I mentioned this was my second year running the race and this was also my second year doing it with my buddy Jimmy who I've talked a lot about on Q -Lips before if you've listened to Q -Lips in the past then you'll know that Jimmy is my running buddy he's from the USA but he also lives here in Korea like me although he doesn't live in Seoul he lives in a different city so he was up visiting for the weekend and participating in a marathon like this really kind of took up our whole weekend.
It's like it happens on Sunday morning and you just run the race on Sunday morning.
But to be honest with you, it felt like my whole weekend from Friday to Sunday was really occupied by this race.
So Jimmy came up to Seoul on Friday evening.
And when he ran it last year, he stayed at my place.
He stayed at my house, but my house is super small and we We don't have a spare bedroom, unfortunately.
So that meant that he had to sleep on the floor.
I don't know. Maybe that's not the most comfortable, best place to sleep before running a marathon, right?
You want to be really well rested, get a good night's sleep before running.
So he chose to stay at an Airbnb this time.
So he stayed at an Airbnb and on Friday night, we met up once he got into town for dinner.
Now one of the reasons why I love running and why I think this is such a great hobby is that when you run a lot, you burn a lot of calories.
And because you burn a lot of calories, it means you get to eat a lot as well.
And so I love eating.
This is one of my guilty pleasures in life, I guess, is enjoying a good meal.
and before running a marathon as well there's a strategy that you can take to make sure that your body has lots of energy to be able to complete the full course and this strategy is called carb loading so you want to take in a huge amount of carbohydrates a day or two before the race so that your body is filled with energy to help you sustain running over that long distance of 42 kilometers.
So that's great as well because you kind of get to pig out on a bunch of carbs before the race day.
And so experts, at least the experts that I follow on Instagram, they say that when you're carb loading you should eat really healthy carbs like pasta and rice and And these kinds of carbs, you want to stay away from really greasy or fast food types, instant food type of carbs.
And in the past, Jimmy and I have done that.
We've been really strict about our carb loading.
In fact, last year, we ran a marathon together in a little city called Gyeongju in the more southern east part of the country.
And we were really strict about our diet for that race.
and yeah we didn't even go out to any restaurants in that city we stayed in our hotel and ate our own meals that we had packed together we were really really strict about our diet and that race ended in a disaster for both of us i ended up injuring myself and i had to dnf i couldn't even finish the marathon and jimmy finished but at a much slower pace and time that he wanted to So it was unsuccessful for both of us.
We called it our personal worst race.
So we were like, what are we doing here?
We're being really strict and we're not getting the results we want.
Let's just enjoy ourselves.
Let's carb load, but eating the kind of food that we wanted to.
And so we decided on Friday night that we were going to go to a popular burger restaurant and eat a hamburger and fries and carb load with some of those dirty carbs that you're not supposed to carb load with.
And in fact, the restaurant that we went to, it's a popular fast food chain that recently opened in Seoul, hasn't been around for too long here in Seoul.
So we wanted to check it out.
And they are famous for giving a huge amount of French fries with your order.
And in fact, when Jimmy and I placed our order, we were just two people.
And the guy at at the counter said the amount of french fries that you ordered is fit for six to eight people is that okay don't you want to get a smaller amount don't you want to order like a smaller size we're like nope I think that's okay so we had hamburgers and we had enough french fries for six to eight people and we just really pigged out on the Friday night for our dirty carb loading and then on the Saturday we were also consumed with the race because we went to the race expo which was near that Jamsil area by the Olympic Stadium that I mentioned earlier.
And we wanted to just check out the vibe of the marathon and see some of the different booths that were there.
There were some different running companies that were giving out some little samples and Adidas had a big display of all their running clothes and running shoes, and they had a pop -up cafe.
You could get a free coffee from the Adidas cafe and just sort of see some of the other runners and check out what was going on.
So we wandered around the Marathon Expo for a little bit and then we walked over to one of the landmarks here in Seoul, which is called Lotte World Tower.
This huge massive skyscraper that I think is something like 130 stories -ish if I recall correctly.
This massive skyscraper in southern Seoul and they have like a big shopping mall inside as well.
And there are many running stores there, like all of the big running brands, sports brands all have stores in that shopping mall.
So we wanted to go and just kind of like, I don't know, we're both like geeking out on running stuff together when we hang out.
So we looked at different running shoes and running clothes, and also got some lunch there.
And we We had a kind of food.
What did we eat? I think we ate gukbap, which, again, Korean listeners will know.
But if you're not from Korea, gukbap is just essentially like soup and rice.
So a kind of soup with some meat inside, and then you can put some rice inside as well.
And, again, we are carb loading.
So at the restaurant, we ordered extra rice, and the server was like, no, no, no, that's much too much rice for you.
And we were like, no, no, no, we're carb loading.
We need the extra rice.
And so she hesitantly brought us out an extra bowl of rice and we were able to carb load that way.
A much cleaner carb load for the lunch on Saturday, a much cleaner, healthier carb load than we had done the previous day.
So Saturday we spent just checking out the expo, checking out running stores.
and then i think we went home in the early evening jimmy went to his airbnb i went back home and we just tried to get a good night's rest because the next day sunday morning that is the marathon day that is go day so as i told you in last week's bonus episode i had been quite sick leading up to the marathon and i wasn't in great condition i hadn't been able to train as much as i wanted to and so to be honest when i originally signed up for the marathon way back when like six months ago at that point i had wanted to try and really run as fast as i could and break a new personal record at the soul marathon how
awesome is that to break your own pr personal record or pb personal best i kind of use these two terms interchangeably how awesome would that be to do it here in my own backyard in Seoul, the city that I live.
But because I was sick, and I hadn't trained properly, I had to lower my expectations.
And when you lower your expectations, it means that you just change your goal, right?
Instead of trying to get my personal best, I knew that because I hadn't trained well, and that I had been sick, that that wasn't a realistic goal anymore to try and get a PR. And so I decided, okay, I'm just going to run for fun.
I'm not going to push myself, I'm going to listen to my body.
And when I can feel I've been running for about a decade now, so you can really get in touch with your body.
And you can feel when you're on the limit of pushing yourself too hard based on your heart rate based on your breathing based on how your legs feel.
And so I I wanted to run hard and have a good run, but I didn't want to push myself past that limit.
Maybe that's something that you would do when you're going for a PR, but because that wasn't my goal anymore, I just wanted to enjoy myself and finish the race.
And I decided, okay, I'm just going to listen to my body, go close to that limit, but not push it over.
Just finish the race and enjoy it.
So that was the plan going in.
However, Jimmy was going to try and go for his PR, a new personal record for him.
And so he had big plans to go hard and fast. And we have this phrase, this slang phrase in English, we say sender, sender or send it, meaning to just go.
And there's another phrase related full send.
So that's like putting all your effort, all your energy, all all your speed into trying to break your personal record and to go as fast as possible.
So Jimmy wanted to do a full send.
But actually, when I met him on the Friday, it was unfortunate because he's like, man, I think I'm coming down with a cold.
And he was sniffling and sneezing a little bit and didn't sound so great.
He sounded congested.
and even the next day on saturday was even worse he was not feeling so great and was coughing a lot and so you know of course i want to support my friend i want to try and encourage him and so i was downplaying it from my perspective i'm like you're fine it's just a cold you'll be okay don't worry about it but you know that can actually have a pretty big effect on you right if you're you're not feeling well like that.
So he was really worried about that and kind of bummed, I think, because we do spend a lot of time and a lot of effort training for these marathons.
It takes months and months and months of discipline and practice and training.
And he said, you know, for the last six months, he had been totally fine.
He wasn't sick at all.
And then, And of course, two days before the race, he starts to not feel so good.
So that was something that he was dealing with.
And of course, I tried to encourage him as best I could to not worry about that.
Well, anyways, we went to bed early on Saturday and race day, the race starts at 8am.
And you have to arrive at the start line by about 7am because you need to check your bag, You know, with like your change of clothes and a towel and stuff like that, because after the race, you're going to want to change and the race starts and ends in totally different locations, right?
So there are all these trucks where you can put your bag in a truck and they will drive it to the finish line for you.
So you have to arrive by about 7am.
So that means you need to wake up pretty early.
I think I woke up at like 5 .15 perhaps in the morning.
and yeah, I didn't sleep very well the night before a marathon. I can't imagine what it's like to be a pro runner because if you have the ability to perhaps win the race, wow, you must be so excited and it must be really exhilarating and nerve wracking.
Even just for me, I'm just participating in the race, but still I'm excited and I didn't sleep very well.
And so So to be honest, I don't even think I needed my alarm to go off, I was already up and ready to go at around 5 .15am.
So I got up and I had some coffee, I had a bagel, some more carb loading.
I had prepared all of my running clothes and gear and everything, packed my bag the night before so that was all ready to go.
One thing that I do like to do, which is kind of funny, is I put on my Bluetooth headphones and I pound some tunes and pound some music.
music usually some really like pump up tunes some fast high tempo loud music sometimes I even like to listen to heavy metal before a race I'm not a huge heavy metal guy but it kind of gets my adrenaline pumping adrenaline flowing before a race so I like to do that kind of get into the groove get into the mood and so I I did that I got all prepared in the morning and then went to the race sites the starting point by by 7 a .m i checked my bag and there were so many people so many people at the starting line uh i had plans to meet jimmy in a certain location but i couldn't find him at all which is kind
of funny because him and i we both stand out like sore thumbs like we're both minorities and we look different than most people there so it's kind of easy to find each other usually we're also both bald so we have these bright white heads shining so it's usually easy to find us but i had some problems finding him in the crowd but eventually i did find him and we worked our way to our starting point together and we were off the race started and yeah it's always fun there's a big countdown and like a firing gun and sometimes even i think they maybe have some fireworks, I can't really remember, but something
sort of maybe it's lights, something goes off when the starting gun fires.
And yeah, it's just a really great atmosphere, like a big festival at the start starting point.
So we were off. And my plan originally was just to run with Jimmy for as long as I could.
But I figured that because he was going for his PR, are and i was just going for a fun run that probably at some point we would split up and he would probably go faster than me and then i would just meet him at the starting line that was the plan so we were off and actually i felt a little bit bad because we just started the race we were maybe 400 or 500 meters into the race we'd only been running for a couple of moments performance and Jimmy turned to me and he said, today's not the day.
I'm not feeling good.
I'm not feeling very well.
And I was a little in, in that moment, I was a little bit frustrated with him.
I was like, come on, man, shut up.
We were only been running for like two minutes.
How do you know that today's not your day?
Today's not the race.
Just hang in there.
Because usually when you start running.
Like this is true for a race.
This can be true just for your daily running.
It always sucks for maybe the first 10 minutes.
And then after 10 minutes, you get into a groove, your body adapts.
You're like, okay, this is something that I'm doing now.
My body is running and it starts to feel better and smoother.
So I said, don't let those negative thoughts get into your head quite yet.
Of course, we've only been running for two minutes.
Just hang in there.
And then And probably you'll adapt and adjust. And so I was trying to encourage him like that.
But, yeah, it was not necessarily disappointing.
But it was a little bit...
I felt bad for him that he didn't feel it right from start.
Me, on the other hand, I couldn't have been feeling better.
I felt great. The weather conditions turned out to be perfect.
It was overcast, not sunny, little bit rainy, like little, little, little bit rainy.
and about seven or eight degrees celsius so this is pretty much right in the goldilocks zone for running a marathon not too hot not too cold not sunny if it's too hot or too sunny then this can actually have a really negative effect on your performance because it makes your heart beat faster than it needs to so the weather conditions were perfect and i was just loving running through downtown seoul the last year when i ran previously my first year i was going for my pr i was just all out running as fast as I could and I didn't really get to soak up the atmosphere as much but this year was totally
different and I was just loving running through all of the different neighborhoods and yeah one thing that was really crazy was the first probably within the first kilometer when you're in the first part of the race you know everybody is at the start line together and you all start together and so it's just this massive group of runners for the first kilometer or two and then after a couple of kilometers it starts to space out and you get some distance and space to yourself but for the first little bit everybody is really packed in together and so you have to be careful that you don't step on the person's
feet in front of you right or that you don't get stepped on from the runner behind you as well and you can't really see too much in front of you you just see the back of the runner's head that is in front of you it's It's like being in this big traffic jam almost of runners.
And so we were running together in this massive pack for the first kilometer.
And we had to do our first turn of the race.
We made a turn towards the left. And as we were making our first left -hand turn, suddenly in the middle of the street, there was a bicycle that was just lying in the middle of the street.
I have no idea what happened.
But this is what I thought maybe had happened.
was there was probably like an old man riding his bicycle and was just trying to cross the road and then this huge pack of marathon runners came and maybe there's probably some police or some traffic authorities guiding the traffic and making sure no cars would you know drive on the marathon road probably this this cyclist snuck by the police or snuck by the traffic authorities and somehow worked his way into the marathon area.
And then somebody caught him and was like, Hey, stop, get off your bike.
And so he probably got off his bike and just left it in the middle of the street.
But this was really dangerous because we had this huge pack of runners and we're making this left -hand turn.
And you can't see in front of you, you just see the back of the heads of the runners that are in front of you.
So super scary. And we turned the corner and then suddenly I I noticed there's a bicycle lying on the street right in front of me, and I had just a split second to react, but I was able to jump and clear the bicycle.
I wasn't expecting to have to do that, but I made a good jump and I jumped over the bike and then I was just yelling, bike, bike, bike, bike, bike, bike in English.
But just to get anybody's attention, super, super dangerous.
That could have resulted in a massive kind of human pileup, human crash.
and i'm glad i didn't see anybody actually run into the bike and i didn't hear anything about that earlier but that was super scary um and i hope they got that figured out and hopefully that won't happen again next year anyways that was a little drama for the first kilometer but the rest of the race just went super super smoothly i felt comfortable the whole time jimmy and i were able able to run together for the first five kilometers.
And then after that, I don't know what happened.
I just he was beside me and I was chatting away to him at one point.
And then the next moment I looked over and I couldn't see him anymore.
Then I look this way, the other way and he wasn't there.
And yeah, I don't know exactly.
But sometimes it's hard to stay together, especially at the start of the race when there are so many runners packed together, that somebody can kind of cut in in front of you or something and you get split up so we expected that that could probably happen and we just planned to meet at the the finish line the rest of the race was really really comfortable i got into a pack of runners there were these guys that were all trying to run a sub three together they had uh on their running clothes on their running jerseys they had i can't remember exactly what it said but it said something like 2 .59 .59
project. So they were all trying to get just, just barely make the sub three.
That was their goal to come in at 2 .59 .59, I suppose.
And so I somehow ended up in a pack of those guys and their speed seemed to be a pretty comfortable speed for me at that time.
So it was kind of fun to run with them and they were all cheering each other on and they were even YouTubing themselves at every kilometer they would bring out their cameras and and film a little bit of them and i found them on youtube maybe if i can find their video again i'll put it in in the description so you can check it out because you can see see me in the background it's kind of funny in some of their scenes i'm just running with those guys so yeah it was kind of cool to run in that pack for a little bit eventually they picked up the pace and yeah i was like okay i could start feeling
my heartbeat get to that limit where i was like i'm not pushing it i'll just let them go so uh we i separated from them maybe a little bit over halfway probably around the 30 kilometer mark or so and what else one other thing that was kind of cool was i got to run for a little bit with uh i don't want to say a celebrity but maybe a minor celebrity here in korea there was this show that was popular for many years, probably back around like 2017 to 2020, maybe a little bit before that here in Korea, the English title of the show was Abnormal Summit.
And this show featured a panel of different foreigners who live in Korea that can all speak Korean really well.
And they would we compare their different countries, culture and, uh, compare it with Korean culture and just talk about different issues.
And that was a really popular show that had, uh, yeah, maybe 20 to 30 people from different countries around the world participate in the show.
And there was one guy that appeared on this show and his name is James.
I think his last name is Hopper or Hooper.
I apologize to James.
I don't remember exactly what his last name is.
Anyways, at probably around the 35 kilometer mark or maybe a little bit before that, 33, 32, somewhere in there.
I started running beside this other foreigner and I looked over at him a couple of times.
I'm like, I think that's the guy from the show.
I think that's James from the show.
And he's actually a really interesting guy.
He piqued my interest when I used to watch that show because he's an adventurer and I know that he's climbed Mount Everest and he's done a lot of cool adventures in Korea and I think he's also a doctor I think he's got his PhD in some interesting maybe earth science or something something related to that a cool field like that and yeah I was running beside him and he was really tall much taller than me really handsome and I know he speaks Korean well as as well so I was like a little bit starstruck and I wanted he was running we were running right beside each other so I was doing some double takes
I was looking over were like, is that the guy?
It's gotta be like, there's not too many foreigners in Korea.
So that must be James.
And, uh, I don't know.
I wanted to, I was feeling pretty good because I wasn't pushing myself too hard. Right.
So I wanted to speak with him, but I thought, what if he's doing his all out run right now, trying to go for his PR to have somebody suddenly start making small small talk with you in the middle of the marathon could be a little rude and I didn't want to try and distract him I didn't I had no idea you know if he was maybe going for his PR in that moment so I thought well maybe I'll run into him at the finish line and I could chat with him for a bit because he seems like the kind of guy that I would really like to speak with but I didn't see him at the end after all but it was cool we ran probably
together for a couple of kilometers and yeah I I felt just a little bit starstruck.
It's cool to see him and to run with him for a couple of kilometers there.
And he looked like he was really running well.
So that was another cool event that happens during the race.
So anyways, the rest of the race was very, very uneventful.
It was fun. When I ran the Soul Marathon in 2024, I feel like I don't remember anything.
I kind of blacked out because I was just giving it an all out effort.
But this time it was, yeah, much, much more pleasant.
And I remember everything.
There are people all along the course cheering each other on, cheering the runners on.
And the vibes were good.
It was a great atmosphere.
And I ended up finishing strong with a smile on my face in a time of three hours and three minutes and I think 35 seconds, 36 seconds, something like that, which ends up being my my second fastest marathon time of all time.
So I didn't PR, but I guess I got my second place PR.
And yeah, it felt great.
Overall, a 10 out of 10 experience.
Jimmy also smashed his PR.
I think he came in with seven minutes faster than his previous PR.
So he absolutely killed it.
He smashed the PR. And yeah, we were super happy with the race.
We met up at the finish line, and it was really cold after finishing the race that eight degrees is perfect when you're running but as soon as you finish running then it's super cold so we got inside to the subway station after and when you finish the race they give you some snacks like some water and some bread and bananas that kind of thing and so we sat in the subway station near the finish line there to to warm up and to eat our bananas and drink some water.
And then unfortunately, Jimmy had to go back home right away.
His dog was in doggie daycare.
So he had to go pick up his dog from doggie daycare.
And so he left Seoul pretty much right away.
And I went home. And then I think I just crashed and relaxed in bed, probably with some TV or movies.
I can't remember what I did, but it wasn't that much. Just relaxed for the rest of the day.
So everyone, I think I need to cut things off here.
I'm speaking for a long time again.
I think this will wrap things up for today.
So thank you for listening all the way to the end of the episode.
If you are able to stick around all the way to the end, that is amazing.
And I think your English fluency will improve as a result.
So great job today.
Keep it up going forward. And before I let you go, I do need to share this week's completion code with you.
the completion code for this episode.
Let's make it a unique one.
Let's go with the code outside, outside.
I'm not sure if you guys are able to hear in the audio or if you're watching the YouTube video version, of course, you'll be able to see.
But right now I am outside sitting in my yard. I think this is the first QLips episode ever that I have recorded outside.
I've recorded one episode in a car before, but never sitting outside.
This is my first outside episode.
So because of that, let's go with the completion code outside.
You can leave it in a comment on the YouTube page or on our Instagram page, on our Discord community, anything like that.
And that will signal to me and to our other Q -Lips listeners that you completed this episode, that you did it.
So go, go, go, leave your example sentence using that word outside.
And of course, as always, I'm looking forward to reading your comments.
Okay, everyone, so that's the marathon talk finished for this year.
My next marathon isn't until November, so I promise I'll stay away from marathon talk until November.
You'll have a few months of non -marathon related talk here on QLUPS.
But thank you guys for listening.
Please take care, have a great week of English studying up ahead, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
Bye -bye.
