MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!

(Insert dramatic opening sentence here) OK, probably the most traumatic thing that happened all day was walking into the portajohn and finding that you had to climb up on a platform and squat over the hole in the floor. Pretty strange.

It was a perfect day in Seoul. High 30s to start, somewhere in the 50s when we finished. And everything in between went like clockwork. Our wave left around 8:20 a.m. Paul and Brent and I spent the whole race together, running easy in a very crowded field. Bands (mostly banging drums) played in numerous places along the course. Many times Koreans would see us and practice the few words of English they knew, making us feel welcomed all day long. If we made an effort to go to the side and "high-five" the young girls there, they would scream and giggle in delight.

The kilometers just clicked off, and before we knew it we were half done. About 2:18 on the half-way mat. Paul commented that last we were saying "Darn, this is only half way! This week we're saying, "Hey, we're already half way." We continued a the same pace for the rest of the race, with Brent running in front of us setting the pace, Paul and I working hard to keep up. It started to look like we could do a negative split, finishing under 4:36, so I worked to keep pace and finish continent # 7 in style. 41K, and the final turn to the Olympic Stadium. We turned into the complex and ran into the track and field stadium for a final turn around the track. We had passed hundreds of people in the last 10K, and on the track we were smokin'. Finish time around 4:35 something, looks like negative splits, a positive marathon experience, and...

A NEW WORLD RECORD!