The Six Million Man

There's a river nearby my house where I like to run.

I should clarify that by "river," I mean "stream", and by "house," I mean "apartment",

And by "stream" I of course mean "sewage runoff."

Anyway, that's where I was running the other day.

A lot of people were out that day because it was a holiday here in Korea - "Sam Il" aka March 1st, is the day some Korean college students wrote a declaration of independence of their country from Japan, and mailed it to the local Japanese government along with turning themselves over to the police.

So anyway, I was running on the day of the anniversary of that.

A man was running ahead of me, so I followed him. I decided that I would just go wherever he went.

We got to the end of the trail about a mile later, and he turned around and started running the other way. This is when he first saw me, and I gave him a nod.

After that, he would keep looking over his shoulder every 5 minutes or so to see where I was. One time I almost caught up to him, but I think he heard me, and he picked up his pace.

He was pretty fast. I probably could have caught up to him, but I didn't want to exhaust myself, and besides, I didn't know how far we were going.

Whenever I got close he would speed up. I had to pick up my pace just to keep from losing him.

We went to the very end of the trail in the other direction (maybe 6 more miles), and he turned around. This time he gave me a hearty "Hey!" or "Hoy!" or something like that, and I gave him a smile and an out-of-breath muttering that was supposed to be "Hi."

This time he waited, and we ran together for some way. We had some conversation, but he didn't speak English, and least not in sentences, so it was mostly in Korean, of which I understood a bit.

I managed to tell him that I was preparing for a marathon. He suggested that we run again later, so he gave me his card.

We met up again Saturday morning. He wanted to meet at 6 AM, which I eventually negotiated to 8 AM, and he somehow renegotiated to 7:30.

We drove to Incheon Grand Park. We ran around the park twice, and then up a hill in the middle of the park twice - it took about two and a half hours.

Afterwards he asked if I wanted to drink makali.

Maybe I mentioned makali before. It's one of Korea's own alcoholic drinks. It's a kind of wine made out of rice. I don't know how they make it, all I know is that it's delicious.

So of course I agreed, and off we went, drinking at 11 AM, or as I like to call it, "business as usual."

(Just kidding, Mom, about usually getting drunk in the morning).

Afterwards, he took me to Incheon City Hall, where he works. We showered, and I thought that was the end of it, but it turns out he wasn't ready to quit.

"Health, 10 minutes."

He meant that he wanted to work out at the gym for ten minutes. I said sure, and so we went to his office gym and worked out for like 40 minutes.

Whenever I was resting or stretching or otherwise slacking off, he'd hustle me away to another machine.

Also, this man is 55 years old.

Earlier, when we were running up the hill, he called me the "six million man."

I got the reference, but I tried to tell him that I had never seen that movie, which I don't think he understood, and then he said something else which I didn't understand, and then we both just laughed.

Another idea floating out into the ether, and no one understands it.