South Korea’s 40km trail running race across Seoul’s highest mountains is a journey of exquisite peaks, parks and pain
- The horseshoe-shaped Five Peaks route, the most punishing race in city, passes along popular hiking routes and the magnificently rocky Bukhansan National Park
- Pine forests and temples give way to new apartment complexes and back to fortresses and pavilions as runners are gifted an ever-shifting scenic backdrop
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 (rice triangle) under the kaleidoscopically painted beams of the Mount Buram Hundred-Year Gate.
I train my headlamp on the road passing through the wooden structure. Cherry and black locust trees disappear into the darkness. The cool night air carries a spring fragrance, like jasmine.
There’s nothing quite like running – or hiking – through a part of a city to get a feel for the place. I’ve entered an early May trail race starting in northeast Seoul, a city that was chosen as a capital 2,000 years ago because of its jagged shield of mountains.
Known to foreign runners as Five Peaks and to locals as Bul-Su-Sa-Do-Buk (after the first syllable of each peak’s name), the horseshoe-shaped route passes near the highest elevations in the metropolitan area. About half of its 40km (25 miles) is a thigh-grinding plunge through the magnificently rocky Bukhansan National Park.
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.