Last week my work had its first ever sports day (체육대회). At first I’ll admit that I wasn’t thrilled about it and actually was dreading the day in entirety. Earlier in the week we received our matching neon green and white track suits and I received a women’s size 100 which would have probably been a women’s size small in the US thus being butt tight and short for me. I ended up exchanging it for a men’s 100. The tracksuit alone was enough to unexcite me.
Friday finally rolled around and we loaded up on a bus and rode off to a stadium that the company rented out for the day. There were about 200 employees that made it out to the event and we were split up into 4 teams. My team consisted of a lot of older guys and I was convinced that we were no match for the other teams filled with young guys. There were only around 10 girls total so we were viewed as handicaps for every competition which I suppose is fair considering that all of us girls were not very athletically gifted.
I like to think in my head that I’m a superstar athlete that can pick up a thousand pounds and manhandle grown men with my pinkies, but in reality I’ve spent the past few years sitting on my mushy butt sitting in a cube. I am no athlete. Our team captain tried his best to evenly distribute everyone for each competition and it was fairly evident early on that although I have run a few 10k’s, I am one slow mother focker. Even old men with pot bellies could run faster than me.
We started off with some calisthenics and then transitioned over to competitions. The main competitions were as follows:
1. Ball tossing competition
2. Parachute rely: each team selected 6 runners (1 female, 5 male) each participant had to wear a parachute and run 25 meters and back.
3. Soccer matches
4. Kick-volleyball matches
5. Tug of war
6. 1000 Meter rely
7. … and a bunch of other small competitions.
The tug of war competition was by far the most challenging but fun game. The only video or picture that I personally took…
The activities went on throughout the whole day from 9-6pm and the weather was perfect. We rented a professional MC, game set up people, first aid people, two street food carts and all you can drink beer on tap. Considering all of the food and beer readily available, I don’t think we actually consumed very much of it.
Overall I’ll say that I was surprised by how much fun I had. I don’t know why I was being such a party pooper about it. The best part of all, my team won the competition!
PS I was super sore for 3 solid days afterward and I'm pretty sure everyone else was too!
