My time in South Korea started out with a real bang as I ran through the second half of 2014 and most of 2015 with numerous friends and tackled all the mountain peaks I could handle, and quite a few that I should have waited on and taken a day off for instead. Some of my favorites included Dobangsan and Bukhansan National Park that surrounds it, Sapaesan (also located in the Bukhansan park area near Uijeongbu just north of Seoul), Chilbongsan, and Cheonbosan (mostly because it was close to our apartment and has a cool temple at its base). As you've probably already guessed, "san" means mountain in the Korean language.
With all the running through the mountains, it probably makes sense that 2015 took a turn for the worse toward the end of the year. Besides making transitions through several grueling job positions, I was informed that my ultra marathon days were probably over. Fissures in the cartilage of my left patella (irreparable) and a large chunk of sheared cartilage from my right femur (possibly repairable initially, but not so much now that I look back) took their toll.
Since September of 2015, I ran through the pain, believing it was only an anterior ligament sprain in my right knee (left knee didn't hurt enough to seem significant compared to my right) and sprains have always been better with running. At least it always felt that way to me! 
One of the most rewarding (and grueling) experiences of 2015 was the opportunity to tackle Korea's inaugural 50k ultra marathon, the Korea 50k in May of 2015. And what a brute it was. I have not had the opportunity, or misfortune, to run such a hot, treacherously steep ultramarathon since. May is a rough month to run an ultra in South Korea, and that was coupled with 8,615 ft of up and down madness according to my Strava log, all in just a little over 30 miles! No bueno for the knees, or any other lower extremities.
Fortunately they had good beer at the finish line, which sort of took some of the sting away. I'm not sure who the brewer was, but congrats on making a fine post-race beverage. I may have had several. In the end, my effort was good enough for 7th place overall, but don't ask me how many runners there were altogether because I was barely able to sign up for the race as I fought through the language barrier. I did have to call a nice bilingual Korean friend or two for help. I also finished just 17 minutes back from the overall winner, so that was pretty cool. On a side note, I successfully steered two lost runners back onto the course about 23 miles into the race, which ultimately cost me 5th place. Not sure how I feel about that, since it was obviously the right thing to do, but cost me a darned podium finish!
Of course, this all happened during the year long buildup for eventually making it onto the Army in Korea 10 Mile Team, so there was no way I was going to slow down at this point. After plowing through many weeks of grueling workouts, with no improvements in my speed, I felt like I was getting nowhere, but this was an opportunity I was not going to miss. The training had to go on! Well, the day for the Army 10 Miler finally came, and while I was not able to hold the sub 6 minute mile pace that I so desperately wanted, I did get to hang out with my bro Justin in the DC area and we toured the sites, hung out in some pretty cool pubs, and enjoyed the cool weather.
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