RyanRanNorthKorea

No, Kim Jong Un won with a time of 1 hour. New world record!

Kidding aside, they break it down into 2 separate marathons probably to avoid this very possibility. Basically, the internationals start an hour before and theres a whole separate award ceremony for the international runners. A guy from Denmark won it.

Then the North Koreans run it. It’s the same course (4, 6.5 mile loops around the city), but they start an hour later. I thought I was doing pretty good at mile 13 and then about a hundred North Korean runners past me, and they were on mile 13 too, only they had started an hour later. Ha.

I think the winning North Korean time was around 2 hours 13 minutes. They were fast as hell, had unfortunately ragged shoes/clothes and I got the sense there was a lot more on the line for them (and their families probably) than for us.

This is a good question, but a tough one to answer.

Some are, some aren’t, but then again, besides the marathon we mostly only get to see what the government allows/wants us to see, and they’re doing their best to dispel the stereotypes.

Things like propaganda are everywhere. The moment you get on the State-run airplane from Beijing, its just propaganda music, all in the same, high pitched tone, always a female singing. Hotel lobby, propaganda music. Go down the escalator to the metro, propaganda music. At first its funny, by day 4 you wanna tear your hair out.

Things like them spying on you, bugging your hotel room, confiscating your cameras. BS. They count how many phones/cameras you have when you enter, and then count them when you leave, mostly to make sure you have the same amount as when you entered so you're not distributing phones with anti-propoganda or bibles or something to locals but they don't really care what you photograph mostly, with a few exceptions being don't cut the frame off at the head/limbs/anything at images and statues of the Great Leaders, and no photos of military checkpoints (fair enough, plenty of places in the US you can't photograph either).

But, I’d say the most fucked up thing about the country is that you’re never really sure what is real, and what isn’t. When what you’re seeing is what actually happens, and what is an elaborate illusion created by the government to make it seem something that its not. For example, before the marathon in Kim Il Sung stadium, it was filled with North Koreans. 50,000 of them. It looked as if they were walking to the stadium on their own accord before hand, but then we entered and they had all these choreographed routines and what not in the stands, and you wonder… You get the sense that they had to be there, though we were told by our Korean guides that it was a “reward” actually. For good work, or whatever.

Another example is this. During the marathon we ran past 2 or three amusement and water parks. There was no one in sight and it was a weekend, and all the rides weren’t running. Completely empty. You’d think, prime time and weather for an amusement park, why is it closed? Then a few days later our Korean tour guide told us we’d be going to the amusement park. I was expecting an empty amusement park with just us, but actually it was filled with North Koreans, seemingly to make it seem “look! our people get to enjoy the amusement park too, and they’re having fun!”. Then you wonder again, the park wasn’t running a few days ago, but the day they bring the foreigners its all of a sudden booming and full. All westerners of course got to skip the line, which was kind of depressing actually.

You go to these restaurants, and they seemingly haven't been visited by anyone else in weeks, and they're just sort of waiting for us. And theres no locals in there, and dozens of empty tables and the tour group is just sort of eating alone. It's creepy, and you find yourself asking a lot "where IS everyone?!" throughout the trip.

But then you're at the park, and you get pulled into a dance circle, and have a dance with a local granny (see photo above) or you have a moment on the subway, and you’re sitting next to a North Korean, and they smile at you and grab their phone for a photo and you think that they're just going about their daily lives.

Another thing to consider, Pyongyang is a city for the elite. Its considered a privilege to live there (kind of a caste system) and the punishment if you fuck up is you actually have to leave the city. So we mostly got to see the best off North Koreans. And even when we did leave Pyongyang city limits to go to the DMZ and to a smaller town, you don’t stray from the road and it seems that everything you see is mostly put there to make it seem like an alright place. But then you think that another mile further, and out of sight from the one highway, and yea, theres probably people starving, and what not.

It was weird seeing a car maybe every 15 miles on the "main highway" which is 2 lanes wide on each side and has these massive stone pillars every half mile that they can knock onto the road in case of an invasion. But in Pyongyang theres more cars and buses.

I wouldn't really call it "shooting the shit," but the marathon took us through the streets of Pyongyang-- mostly unsupervised for large portions, a freedom which is not afforded to most visitors. This is a country where you can't leave your hotel at night.

The North Koreans on the route were really supportive and friendly. The first lap (it was 4, 6 mile laps) they were shy, and sort of just stared as we went by; they don't see very many westerners. By lap 2 they opened up a bit and it was high fives and cheers all around for everyone.

I'd highly recommend you visit! I reckon it won't be the same in a few years. Now is the time to see it before it opens up (relatively).

I was expecting these big, 4 lane highways completely desolate with no cars and a traffic lady directing no traffic at all. I mean, its not LA traffic but our tour bus actually got in a mini-traffic jam.

I was also surprised with just how many people had cell phones. 40% I'd say. And they'd whip them out and snap photos all the time. Our guide told us that 5 years ago you wouldn't have seen any mobile phones, and even still the government monitors EVERYTHING. For example, we heard a story (I can't confirm this of course) that one of the western guides from the tour company I went with a while back streamed some porn, thinking it was hilarious that he was looking at porn in North Korea, and the company got into some trouble and ended up with a rather stern warning from the powers that be.

Overall, the citizens lives are very obviously very dictated by the government, but I was surprised that they actually have quite a bit more free will than I thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pak_Song-chol_(athlete)

This guy won supposedly.

Athletes in North Korea train their whole life and probably get the best nutrition in the country to bring glory to the nation.