chitose JAL international marathon

yesterday rie and i ran the chitose JAL international marathon in hokkaido. it was raining quite heavily when we started and cool (or even cold), but by the time we finished the rain had turned to clouds. the race takes place through a forest and on tracks for the first 34km and then the final 8-9km are run on roads. as it was raining (and rained the day before) the tracks were pretty muddy. in fact it seemed to resemble cross-country more than a road race! as such i would say this was a really tough marathon! on top of the rain and the mud, it was also very hilly. from the start to about 22km included an overall increase of almost 200m vertically. the 'actual' increase was probably more like 500m with all the hills that we encountered. the second half was mostly down although there were still a couple of killer inclines there too.

so the results. well we both did amazingly! i finished (covered in mud) in a time of 2hours 46mins 55seconds. while this was about 6 minutes slower than my debut in nagoya, i think it would probably equate to about 2hours 37mins on a flat course like that. i finished in 17th place overall (out of about 3000 runners), and 7th in my age group (up to 35 years old). i was very pleased, especially as the last 10km were so tough. i ended up with three really nasty blisters, holes in my socks and legs that felt like lead... i guess par for the course when running a marathon! i actually ran the first half really well (in just under 1hour 20mins) and felt good, but all those hills and all the mud took their toll in the end. overall i was really pleased.

rie came home in 4hours 21mins 55seconds. actually, that was the gross time and when the official chip times come out it will probably be just under 4hours 20mins, as it took that long to cross the start line. an amazing effort i think, especially given that it was such a tough course and such draining conditions. she said she ran about 60mins/10km pace until 30km and then had a tough final 10-12km, but she was really pleased and i was so proud! she finished 25th in her age group for women and about 120th overall in the women's race out of about 500 runners. amazing, especially for her debut run!

so, both very satisfied and incredibly sore today! immediately after the race rie swore she'd never do it again, but today is talking about trying to do another one! it is really difficult to describe that feeling of total satisfaction and pride coupled with the pain that makes you walk like a robot!

on a side note, the whole race was brilliant. the eight drink stations were really well stocked with energy drinks, water, lemons, bananas, bread and sponges. the volunteers were cheering and helping (remember that they are standing in the middle of a forest in the rain) and the crowds at the start and finish was as awesome as ever in japan. this truly is the best country to run marathons! on top of that we had rie's mum and grandmother cheering us at the end. we both got our free towel and finisher's t-shirts and hot buttered potatoes. also, my runner's number was called out for a prize. i was too stiff to move so rie's mum ran off to see what it was and came back with a brand new pair of 90-pound mizuno shoes! we exchanged them for rie's size and that was her prize for completing her first marathon.

an EXCELLENT day!

may training summary

distance: 170.5miles (274.5km)
time: 21hours 52minutes 56seconds
runs: 9 easy, 5 long, 4 tempo, 1 race

lots and lots of miles this month. despite having a race (and therefore a few days off before and after) and also tapering down for the marathon next weekend, i managed to get in all the miles i wanted. did several of these runs with rie at a nice easy recovery pace so i actually feel very refreshed, despite the distance covered.

have tapered nicely down for the marathon from a peak of 50 miles three weeks ago, to 40 and to 30 last week. i will do only two runs this week, one with rie, to make sure that the old muscles are plenty rested before sunday. wish us luck!

about a week before the JAL chitose marathon

so, only nine days to go before the JAL chitose marathon which starts at 10.10am on june 7th and i fully expect anyone who reads this to be thinking of rie and me then!

we have dropped down our training a lot recently and i am hoping that the increased rest will enable our tired muscles to get some well-deserved rest before next weekend. there will be about 3000 men and 500 women running the full marathon so there should be plenty of people to sympathise with us along the way! there are also plenty of water stations (and first aid posts), which is good news as it could easily be pretty warm.

it's been quite windy recently too, so i am praying for a nice cool, calm morning on sunday 7th!

a funny story...

here is a funny story about running (and japan) that my friend sent me recently:

*****

Shizo Kanakuri disappeared while running the marathon in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm. He was listed as a missing person in Sweden for 50 years — until a journalist found him living placidly in southern Japan.

Overcome with heat during the race, he had stopped at a garden party to drink orange juice, stayed for an hour, then took a train to a hotel and sailed home the next day, too ashamed to tell anyone he was leaving.

There's a happy ending: In 1966 Kanakuri accepted an invitation to return to Stockholm and complete his run. His final time was 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds — surely a record that will never be broken.

******

brilliant.

tohohiragawa half-marathon

today rie and i ran the tohohiragawa half-marathon up here in sapporo. it was a nice route, around a park and along the river, but it was incredibly and unseasonally hot. it was really sunny, without a cloud in the sky, and it must have been 25 degrees - which is too hot to be running so far.

despite that we both did well and finished with respectable times. i ran 1hour 20mins 32secs, finishing 41st overall and 24th in my age group. rie ran 1hour 56mins 48secs in her half-marathon debut and finished 125th out of almost 400 female runners. in fact she was just outside the top half in the whole field (there were about 2100 runners in all). it was very impressive running from her, especially as it was so hot.

as for me, i was a little disappointed at first as my time was slower than inuyama, but looking back i am just pleased that i finished. i went off at my aim pace for the first 2km, but then the group i was running with put in an incredibly fast 3rd km and it killed me. i slowed down immediately to try to limit the damage, but it was too late. i went through 5km in 17mins 12secs (new PB) and 10km in 35mins 37secs, but suffered over the next 7-8km. i couldn't get my legs into a comfortable pace and, even though i did pick it up in the final couple of kms, couldn't keep going. however, i am glad to have made that kind of mistake, because it reminded me how far the half-marathon really is and how tough it can be if you go too fast! i certainly won't make the same mistake in the marathon next month! you can see the sense of relief at finishing here...

both of us had some blisters and, of course, some sore legs, but we came out of the race with no major injuries. we will just try to keep going now with some training for the marathon, which is only just over 4 weeks away!

april training summary

at the start of this month i took about 10 days off from running after the marathon. this was mostly to give my body a chance to recover fully and also due to moving house. however, i have managed to get in a lot of running since coming up to sapporo and am really enjoying it.

i have also been running a lot with rie. when we run together it is usually at a pace which is perfect for my legs to recover. this means that when i have run by myself i can push myself really hard sometimes. we will see if this training tactic pays off come race day! personally i feel really good though, because when i run by myself i find it very hard to run at a nice recovery pace.

distance: 135.8miles (218.6km)
time: 17hours 04minutes 20seconds
runs: 9 easy, 2 long, 4 tempo

also, this month my suunto heart rate monitor strap broke. i just bought a new one from amazon though so no problem!

bought some new shoes...

so after visiting the asics shop last week i decided that i couldn't resist buying some new 'slim' shoes. so i went to the shop with rie today and got some nice shiny new asic tarther rs alivio-2 'slim' shoes. i have decided i will wear these for races and long runs, and for normal training i will wear my regular tarther alivio 1 shoes with normal socks. i have already covered almost 200 miles in them so they are clearly ok!

i love asics now. i was always a big adidas fan, but since i got that first pair of asics shoes i have totally been converted.

however, i also got another free pair of adidas mana shoes today! there was another problem with my old ones, with the inner slipping alot, so i got a replacement pair and they were even kind enough to give me them in size 27 instead of 27.5. the guy at the adidas shop was really cool so i still love adidas too!

loving running in sapporo

so my wife and i have moved to sapporo for a few months and running up here is like running on a different planet compared to nagoya. of course it is cooler, although nagoya has not yet reached the disguisting weather of summer, but more than that it is beautiful and so clean. don't get me wrong, japan is clean everywhere in terms of rubbish and dog poo and so on, but sapporo is beautiful and the air is so clean. in japanese they say "the air is delicious" and it really is. so crisp and not full of smog or pollution.

plus rie and i found a cycling road that runs from the centre of town for about 20km out into the countryside. this is not a cycling road that runs next to a road with cars on, but simply a path that winds it's way through trees, fields and countryside with very few traffic lights (i think there are 3 on the whole track) and, more importantly, no cars! there are a few bikers and runners and people walking, but it is not crowded.

also, everyone up here is so friendly. everyone says hello to each when they run passed. in nagoya i had one running friend (as in we greeted each other as we passed) and everyone else kind of looked the other way. here it is amazing.

so we are running a lot. rie and i run together three times a week and i add on two or three more runs myself. we are preparing for a half-marathon next week and a full marathon in june. but i feel like i have totally rediscovered the joy of running again. lovely. so peaceful, so quiet, no need to always be looking out for cars or lights... it is a runner's heaven.

the asics running shop

so as you know i bought some asics tarther running shoes a while ago. the gave the inspiration for the name of this blog. well, today i went to the asics running shop that recently opened in sapporo and had my feet scanned and checked and then did some running on the treadmill, which was filmed and played back to me.

amazing stuff. turns out that for some reason (probably because of a broken knee, ankle and foot on my left leg!) i lean more heavily on my right foot. i also have really narrow feet and the guy recommended that i buy slim model shoes from now on. it also turned out that my shoes that i have are about half a size too big. no problem for regular training, as i wear normal socks, but when i where my skinny socks in races it could explain why my feet get blisters.

anyway, it was a great experience and rie and naomi loved laughing at how excited i became. i decided i want to own a running shop in the future!!!

march training summary

this month included the taper towards my first marathon and, right at the end of the month, the actual race. despite that i managed to do my highest mileage yet.

distance: 145.6miles (235.0km)
time: 17hours 40minutes 29seconds
runs: 10 easy, 3 long, 3 tempo, 1 race

finished my first marathon!

just got back from anjo marathon. am so happy because i ran really well and finished in 2 hours 40 minutes 45 seconds. that was almost 20 minutes faster than my aim of 3 hours!

i also won, which made it even better of course! now my legs feel suitably tired, but i am feeling really good!

thanks to rie, rich & hal, ben & touko and finally peyton for coming to support. the cheering kept me going, as did rie's drinks and peyton's mad dash to get me some pocari! i'll never forget my marathon debut!

a blast from the past

i was trying to find the contact details for someone i used to run with at university and i happened to find a page which is for old members of the oxford university cross-country club. at the bottom of that page was a photo that nearly brought tears to my eyes. in case you can't be sure, i am the blond thing in the middle, number 31, holding a bottle of champagne. it is the victorious men's team from the 1998 varsity cross-country match. also in the photo are evan fountain (number 29) who was my mentor and the team captain and nick talbot (number 33) who helped me through my physiology finals. brought back some great memories. in case you are wondering why it is dark, this event is a true cross-country race. it is run in the middle of december, in the cold and rain, through mud and rivers and over a long course. it was probably the hardest race i even ran but definitely one of the most rewarding and proud moments of my life. brilliant.

trying to taper

at the moment i am in the second week of my taper. what's that? well, apparently it is a really good idea to start running less and less in the three weeks before a marathon. i have followed some advice from the 'runner's world' website which has lots of good articles about training and so on.

my biggest mileage week was just under 50 miles. so last week i dropped it down to about 40 miles. more important than distance covered was the fact that i tried to run a little slower than normal. i had one run of about 6 miles at my marathon race pace, but all the others were about one and a half to two minutes per mile slower. well, that was the idea. but it is not that easy to run slower after running at the same pace for the past couple of months! my watch was very useful in telling me if i was going too fast, but i prefer to trust my body and how i feel. recently i have been feeling really good and often find at the end of a run that i ran a little faster than my plan. so i have tried taking more days off and that seems to help too. this week i will probably only run four times and will total no more than 30 miles. i will try to keep all my runs nice and slow, perhaps with a couple of miles at race pace in one run.

what's the point of a taper? well, i will be trying to run over 26 miles at a decent pace. so the main point is to let my muscles recover from training and to keep my body and all its systems at 100%. there is no point training hard now as it is unlikely to take any time off my marathon. instead it would probably make me more tired. i have to trust in the training i have done and in my mental strength to help me run through the hard parts of the marathon! and of course i know that rie will be there to cheer me on when i want to die!

am really looking forward to the anjo marathon now. have done some research and found out that it is run on a cycle path, but that they do not close the path. so there will be some walkers and cyclists and i might also have to pause for some red lights. might sound strange, but i think it will be a nice low-key introduction to the marathon for me!

nagoya international women's marathon

rie and i headed out to watch the nagoya international women's marathon yesterday and we were rewarded with a great race and a great result. rie's colleague from tsukuba university, fujinaga-san, won and will now be going to the world championships in berlin. it was her first marathon and she won by running a controlled race, coming from behind at around the 37km mark and winning comfortably in the end in a time of 2 hours 28 minutes 13 seconds. very fast. it was also the last race for crowd-favourite and former olympic champion takahashi-san (more famously known as Qchan). took a couple of photos on my phone:

Qchan

Fujinaga-san

it was so cool watching all the runners come in. it gave me some inspiration for my marathon debut at the end of this month, but also some fear after seeing some of these high-class runners really struggling at the end of the race. it's a long way! but as rie said, "it's your first marathon so whatever happens it will be a personal best!". nice, i love my wife!

february training summary

this month was about miles. trying to run lots of miles! i also had a bit of a taper before the half-marathon and took it easy the week after that in an attempt to keep my legs fresh and to take some pressure of my feet! anyway, here is what i did:

distance: 132.3miles (212.2km)
time: 15hours 49minutes 43seconds
runs: 7 easy, 3 long, 6 tempo, 1 race

it was a really good month's training. the only negative was some nice blisters from the half-marathon, but i am not surprised as i am wearing in some new shoes too. running really well and feeling really good. will try to put in a good couple of long runs before tapering for the marathon.

inuyama half-marathon results

found out today that my official place in the half marathon was 24th out of 3473 finishers. i am very happy with that! here were my split times:

5km: 18mins 12secs
10km: 36mins 43secs (18mins 31secs)
15km: 54mins 44secs (18mins 01secs)
20km: 1hour 12mins 54secs (18mins 10secs)
finish: 1hour 16mins 42secs (3mins 48secs)

two days later and my legs are recovering. took yesterday off but will probably got for a nice easy recovery jog tonight and then start to get back on with my training towards the anjo marathon at the end of march. my aim for that marathon has not changed at all - i just want to finish it! under 3 hours would be great, but that is it!

mara yamauchi

here is a photo of me and mara yamauchi after the inuyama half marathon. thank you to mara for the encouragement at the end of the race!

inuyama half-marathon

i ran the inuyama half-marathon today and knocked over four minutes off my personal best with a time of 1hour 16minutes and 42seconds. not sure about the position yet, but definitely in the top 30 and there were over 4000 runners competing, so i am very happy right now!

rie and i went up to inuyama on saturday morning and stayed at an onsen hotel. little did we know that lots of other runners were staying there, including the special guest runners. the special female guest runner was a british woman (who works at the embassy over here and is married to a japanese guy) called mara yamauchi. for those who don't know she is currently ranked 6th in the world for women's marathon runners so she is pretty fast! anyway, at dinner we saw her and i went to say hello. she was so friendly and happy to chat to a random person like me. it always makes me happy when a fellow brit is kind and friendly as opposed to drunk and falling over outside a bar!

after a nice onsen and a great sleep i felt good this morning. i managed to get near the front for the start to avoid being stuck behind 4000 other people and felt really good for the first few km. after about 7km i felt like i could even go a bit quicker so upped the pace a little. went through 10km in about 36mins 41seconds. i then started to realise that i felt so much better than the nagoya half-marathon (when i ran with an injury) and so pushed on a little. i ran my 2nd 10km in about 36mins 04seconds, and overtook lots of runners so that made me feel even better. i even overtook mara (who was doing this as a guest runner, so not running full pace!). with about 500m to go i heard someone coming up behind me and breathing way too easily. sure enough, it was mara. she encouraged me to push it for the end, which was really nice, and i sprinted home, running my final 1000m faster than any other 1000m i did in the race.

at the end i shook hands with mara and said thanks. she even kindly posed for a photo with me in front of rie. rie cheered me all the way and was ready for me at the end with warm clothes, sports drinks and lots of words of encouragement and congratulations. it was a perfect run!

so very happy (and quite sore) as i write this now. inuyama was beautiful and a great place to run. the crowd were great as usual. i met a famous marathon runner and even beat her in a sprint finish (her personal best is 8minutes faster than mine though!!!).

japan-based kenyan runner dies

according to news reports, japan-based long-distance runner jefferson siekei has been killed in a road accident in kenya. he was 25 years old and had been a runner for the hitachi cable athletics team in japan since 2007. he had already put in several strong performances in events like the national corporate ekiden road relay.

he was riding a motorcycle on his way to a competition when he crashed head-on with a truck. on february 9th, yamanashi gakuin university runner mekubo mogosu suffered minor injuries in a car accident in kenya.

there are quite a few foreign runners based in japan, especially long-distance runners. perhaps the most famous is samuel wanjiru (who won the marathon in the beijin olympics). other runners include mara yamaguchi and erick wainaina. having been to kenya i can imagine how easy it would be to be involved in a traffic accident and of course it is no more tragic just because this particular victim happened to be a relatively famous runner. despite that it is sad enough and my thoughts go out to his family, friends and team-mates.

my suunto t3c watch

last september i got a suunto t3c running watch. i think the 'c' stands for comfortable or something like that, otherwise i guess it was the same as the t3 watch. i got the running kit which included the heart-rate strap and the foot pod. the foot pod attaches to your running shoes with a pretty simple but sturdy clip through the laces. all the heart-rate strap requires is a simple click and the strap itself is very easy to adjust. i paid 100 pounds for it from the adventure shop in the uk (http://www.adventureshop.co.uk/). i ordered it online and they delivered it to japan quickly and promptly, it was all good.

so, what do i think? well, i read some articles online that said it was difficult to get into the watch and to understand it quickly and so on, but i have to say that it was really easy to set up and to use from the start. you just enter your vital details and then you're good to go. the foot pod is ready ready to go from the box, although you can go to a track and run an exact distance to make sure the calibration is correct. the watch has plenty of functions, but there are basically three main screens: one shows the time (as in the time of day), the next one shows your heart rate (with running time above) and the third one shows your speed (with distance above). clearly you need the foot pod for the speed and distance setting to work. below the main display you can scroll through various views such as lap time, total time, distance, average speed, calories and so on.

because the screen has one main piece of information, the information above and below that can seem a bit small at first and it is not so easy to see if you are running at full speed in the dusk... but how often do you do that anyway?! on normal runs it is very easy to view the screen and to scroll through the various functions. it also has an excellent storage facility (15 logs) so you can easily replay all your information after the run. you can also set heart-rate zones, speed-zones, intervals and so on. if you buy the pc pod (which i don't have) you can simply download it all straight into the computer without have to do anything.

one cool thing is that the watch will tell you your "training effort" for each session you do. this is a number between 1 and 5 (with 5 being the hardest effort). while simplifying things a lot, this allows you to control how hard you are training, mainly so you don't overdo things. the watch will even tell you during a run how long you have to go until you jump to the next level! it also adapts to your training - if you train every day, you will have to work harder to achieve a rating of 5 and vice-versa. it might seem like a gimmick, but it is a nice little addition.

i'd really recommend this watch. the heart-rate strap has never lost contact and i only had to replace the foot pod battery once. the watch tells me all i need to know (and more) and i have no trouble viewing it while running normally. the buttons are easy to push and it was really easy to set up. the guide is excellent and the online help service is also fantastic. more than anything, it takes so much guesswork out of running. now i always know how far, long and fast i am running for. i am sure there are better and worse watches out there, but i love my suunto!

check out the official page here:
http://www.suunto.com/

the (re)birth of "tiger running"

having recently purchased a new pair of shoes with some cool kanji on them, i thought i would start keeping a blog about my running. the kanji on the shoes (虎走) literally means "tiger running" and so i decided to name the blog the same.

i used to run a lot. when i was 16-19 years old all i did was run. i wanted to be a professional runner. maybe i could have been, but by the time i got to university the fire was burning out. i was burning out. too much training made running no fun anymore. maybe i couldn't be a professional sportsman. aside from lacking the true ability (haha) i like playing sports because they are fun. i love the competition and the comradeship and the games and the training and everything, but most of all i love that it is fun. so i stopped running seriously and did lots of other things that i enjoyed, like playing football and other sports and generally enjoying my youth!

but i always loved running. the freedom. the individuality. the long hard slogs through knee-deep mud on a cold and rainy sunday. the feeling of sun on tired legs at the end of a race. the smell of new shoes. the comfortable feeling of old shoes. over the past ten years or so i have occasionally started running again, but never with any particular aim.

despite living in japan since 2004, it wasn't until i got married that i realised that the japanese attitude towards long-distance running is a perfect match for me. firstly, my wife is as into sports as i am. secondly, people here in japan not only understand the desire, strength and sacrifice required to run long-distance, but they actively embrace it. just read about marathons and ekidens and you will see how closely the japanese spirit is entwined with that of the long-distance runner. the fact that a normal person in japan knows how far a marathon is and how fast is a good time, the fact that a regular city race will close down main roads and bring out thousands of cheering spectators, the fact that people love and respect running... all these things rekindled my fire. i could feel that burning desire to run again.

so i did. but now i don't run to win medals or be the best in the world. i just run because i want to. i run because i love the feeling of running. i do love running fast, but it is about more than times and positions now. it is about running for the enjoyment of running. i will still try to set personal bests, but i will cherish the feeling of finishing a run as much as the feeling of beating a time.

on this blog i will talk about shoes, races, training... but mainly about the feeling of running again. i hope that it will inspire some more people to start running, be it for the first time or starting again after an absence.

i am a tiger, a tiger running.

got my new shoes on...

after topping 500 miles in my old adidas mana shoes i decided it was time to get some new ones. so i headed to sports depot in nagoya and bought myself a pair of asics tarther first edition shoes. they are dark blue (not that colour is important for running shoes!) and they have 虎走 written in kanji on the tongue. it means "tiger running". hence the name of this blog. as asics have just released a new edition of the tarther series these were reduced from 13,000 yen (100 pounds) to 9,000 (70 pounds). i like them.

i also thought i would see if the kind people at adidas might trade in my old adidas mana shoes for some new ones. they did! for only 150 yen (1 pound) i changed my beat-up yellow shoes for the new series of mana shoes in a flashy red colour (because colour is important when it is the same as my football team!). i have been running in mana shoes for over two years now and i really like them, especially for training.

will update you on how these two pairs of shoes work out.

first really long long run

today i decided to put some serious miles into my legs. even though i did the yasso 800m workout on friday i felt really good and so wanted to do my long run as normal today. i have found a loop of about 16-17km around nagoya that doesn't involve too many traffic lights. or if i get stuck at a light i can usually find another place to cross. so it means that i can keep running without too many stops.

as with the last long run, i decided not to take on any fuel, but as i was planing to run a little longer i wanted to give myself plenty of time to get some water. i decided to do two laps and so i left a litre of water in my bike basket near my apartment for halfway. here is the data from the run:

time: 2hours 35minutes 38seconds
distance: 33.75 km (21 miles)
pace: 7mins 26s /mile

this run felt really good. i have a small blister on my right foot, but nothing painful, and my legs began to feel quite heavy by the end. however, this is easily the furthest i have run since starting up again in japan and i felt like i could run a marathon! well, not straight away but you know what i mean! i don't feel like i needed any fuel to complete the run, but as soon as i stopped and was in the shower i felt pretty low on sugar and was glad to be drinking my pocari sweat!

lessons learned from this run were that i need to get some vaseline (for the places that rub...) and i also want to get some new shoes (as i am now over 500 miles in my current ones).

yasso 800s

in my ongoing training and desire to know how i am doing i came across an interesting training session for the marathon. accredited to burt yasso, the idea is that by running 10 repetitions of 800m you can estimate your marathon time. how does it work? well, relatively easily. you run your 10 reps and at the end you take the average 800m time in minutes and seconds and that will be your marathon time, in hours and minutes.

here were my results from today's session:
rep 1: 2m 57s
rep 2: 2m 51s
rep 3: 2m 53s
rep 4: 2m 50s
rep 5: 2m 56s
rep 6: 2m 55s
rep 7: 2m 52s
rep 8: 2m 52s
rep 9: 2m 49s
rep 10: 2m 46s
average time: 2minutes 52seconds ----- 5mins 47s /mile pace

as a recovery i jogged 200m in between each rep. my average recovery time was around 70 seconds. after i finished the session i read some more about this workout and found out that you should actually take the same recovery as your 800m rep time, so i clearly wasn't taking enough recovery. despite that it felt like a good session and is something i will do again (perhaps with more recovery this time).

i also read that some people seem to think that this works as a predictor but it predicts about 5 minutes too fast for the marathon time. as my rep average was around 2minutes 52seconds, that would point towards a 2 hour 57 minutes marathon time. fine by me!!!

clearly this predictor workout comes with plenty of warnings attached. you still need to do the necessary mileage training for a marathon, for example. completing ten 800m reps is obviously not the same as running over 42km! however, it was an interesting workout and made me feel pretty good! i think i can run it more effectively next time having done it once.

january training summary

the main aim of this month was to get back to training fitness and start putting some miles into my legs in preparation for the marathon at the end of march. here is what i managed to do:

distance: 79.4miles (127.4km)
time: 9hours 50minutes 46seconds
runs: 8 easy, 2 long, 2 tempo

overall i felt good and by the end of the month i had definitely got my mojo back and was really enjoying running again. feel like i re-started gently enough to stop any major injuries. my foot felt fine although my shoes are beginning to get a little tired i think.

first long long run

today i did my first long long run... haha, if that doesn't make sense i apologise! most of the marathon literature i have read suggests that the long run is probably the most important part of training. after my experience in the nagoya city marathon of struggling in the last few kilometres, i can totally understand this advice. i read an interesting article on the mcmillan running website (definitely worth a read - http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/marathonlongrun.htm) about not ingesting any fuel before or during the run and decided to give it a go. here was the result:

time: 1hour 56mins 33seconds
distance: 24.2 km
pace: 7mins 46s per mile.

as my dream for the marathon involves running under 3 hours i wanted to run around 7mins 50s - 8mins 20s per mile (about 1 - 1.5 minutes slower than my marathon pace), so in that sense it was perfect. i didn't need to take on any fuel although by the end my legs were definitely feeling heavier. it was a good workout. it is pretty cold over here in japan at the moment but it gives me the chance to wear my thermals and enjoy it!

a new year and a new aim

i have decided to enter a marathon before leaving japan. if i could complete a marathon over here i feel like it would be perfect, as it is japan that has helped me to appreciate running again. of course i will be coming back to japan regularly in the future and will hopefully live here again one day, but this is something that i have suddenly decided i really want to do.

my foot feels fine now. there is some kind of nerve pain sometimes, but i don't think there is anything structurally wrong anymore. there is no pain on my bone anyway. i am looking forward to getting back into training and doing some long runs in preparation for a marathon, possibly at the end of march.