Two runners bound down a trail in Bukhansan National Park, Seoul, South Korea, part of the 40km Five Peaks trail running race that’s one of the hardest in the country.Nervous figures stand about in the spectral gleam of street lights, some shyly glancing about, some conferring quietly. One grey-bearded fellow looks like a hermit in tights. Another is shuffling his feet, eating a samgak kimbap under the kaleidoscopically painted beams of the Mount Buram Hundred-Year Gate.
Fifteen minutes before start time, taxis continue to pull up and disgorge amateur athletes, who head for a boxy grey hatchback parked on the pavement with a table flush against the tailgate. Here, Korea Trail Runner Association head Park Chung-gyu, 72, hands out race bibs – all are welcome, although Google Translate would probably be needed by non-Korean speakers to navigate the association’s website.
On Mount Suraksan now, I run alongside the fence of a military firing range and through gullies carved into the forest floor by generations of hiking boots. The top is a phantasmagoria of eroded granite. This park holds the Guinness World Record for number of annual visitors per square foot, and I meet a number of them – hikers outfitted with gloves, bright apparel and trekking poles.
After one more descent to the city, I reach the high fortification of Daedongmun at 10am. Bukhansan’s fortress wall has three other main gates and a number of smaller ones.
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