19th Jeju Marathon Festival

Organisers of running races have many problems to overcome, I’m sure, but this one must be unique to Jeju: I pulled in to the car park to find large areas covered with drying garlic. There was some lively debate in Korean between race officials and the ladies looking after the garlic and it was being cleared away by the time I left. That missed the point somewhat, I assume.

Anyway, the race followed the coast on the north-eastern part of the island. Korean runners are very welcoming; it was an out-and-back course and there were plenty of calls of ‘hwaiting’ (derived from the English ‘fighting’, a form of encouragement) from runners on the out half as I was coming back. The race attracted an international field and I even got a ‘ganbare’ (hang in there) from one of the Japanese contingent.