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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.