Pair Makes Fitness Part of the Family

“We got rid of our TV after we started exercise. Without TV, our kids listen to each other better.”

The couple, Lee Ki-beom, 45, and Yi O-sun, 38, who enjoys the ironman triathlon, was just back from their routine of running alongside Han River.

“We get up at 5:30 a.m. every day and do exercise for one and half hours. We go climbing, work out at a health club, and swim. On Sundays, we run 12km alongside Han River with ironman club members. We get to sleep early at night since we get up so early in the morning. We were not watching TV much, so we donated it to the apartment guard office.”

All the family is running as their two daughters and son also participate in swimming and sprinting contests. All of them sleep early and get up early.

Yi, a homemaker, said, “If a wife and mother gets sick, the whole family gets depressed. Healthy and refreshed, I don’t blow up to my family.”

Lee started running for a marathon four years ago.

“As I got older, I wanted to test my own limits as well as to work out. Running for a marathon made me try the triathlon.”

Lee joined the “Iron Wing,” an ironman triathlon club, and completed the “king course” of swimming 3.9km across the sea, cycling 180.2km, and running a marathon full course in Jeju last year. He also completed the full course of a 100km running contest. When he feels he needs more exercise, he commutes by cycling 40km from his home (Siheung-dong, Seoul) to his work place (Hwaseong-dong, Suwon).

Yi, who once in a while joined her husband for exercise, started working out regularly to become an iron-woman two years ago. She participated in the SC First Bank’s Jeju International Ironman Korea last year. With the swimming part cancelled due to high waves, the husband and wife completed the other two parts, respectively in 12 hours and 44 minutes and in 14 hours and 30 minutes.

“We go to work out together even after a big fight. We go out with our faces turned away and comes back home smiling to each other. After working out to the limit of my body, I get to endure well, saying, ‘I am an ironman.’”

bluesky@donga.com