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!

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!!!).

nagoya city half-marathon

i did it! today i completed my first half-marathon. having tested out my injured foot on friday i decided it was ok to run. by the end of the race i couldn't even notice any pain in my foot - mainly because of the pain throughout the rest of my body! it will never cease to amaze me that no matter how hard you prepare for a run, it almost always hurts your body. haha, it is one part of running that i love of course.

so how was the half-marathon experience? well it really is a long way. the final few kilometres were tough as i slowly dropped off my dream pace, but not surprising as i didn't train (and hardly even walked) for the past two weeks due to my foot injury. i was really really pleased and was also touched by some friends (lili and rich) coming to watch and of course my beloved rie being there are the start and finish to cheer me on. the feeling of total deadness and lack of energy in my legs as i climbed over a small humpback bridge ("it felt like climbing a mountain," i would later tell rie!) with a few hundred metres remaining really let me know i had done it.

anyway, the result:
i came in 52nd (out of about 2000 finishers - around 3300 started) in a time of 1hour 21minutes 0seconds. i was actually the first non-japanese finisher too!
my splits were as follows:
5km: 18m 28s
10km: 19m 07s (37m 35s)
15km: 19m 12s (56m 47s)
20km: 19m 44s (1h 16m 31s)
FINISH: 4m 29s (1h 21m 0s)

as you can see the last 6km was the hardest, especially the final 1.1km! i probably went off a little too fast, despite trying to control myself. but, it was a great experience and one i am looking forward to repeating next year.

once again i would like to reserve some special mention for japanese spectators. there were thousands of people lining the whole route (which was just one lap) throughout nagoya. they cheer and shout and wave flags. if running in england had been like this i would probably have never stopped! thoroughly enjoyable and really fulfilling. the plan now is to rest up for snowboarding this new year and start running again in january if all goes well.

here is the race website: http://nagoya-city-marathon.jp/