As I’ve mentioned several times in this blog, I have spent the past six months training for the Tokyo Marathon which finally took place last weekend. Having spent countless hours pounding the treadmill at my gym with only nonsensical Japanese TV programmes for company (which always seem to involve crying, cookery, cross-dressing or a combination of the three…), I was rather looking forward to getting the big race out of the way. In retrospect, motivating myself to train for a marathon in the freezing Yamagata winter was much tougher than I expected and as the big day drew ever closer, I became increasingly concerned about whether I’d be able to run the course, particularly having had a heavy cold in the previous week. Nonetheless, buoyed by a recovery and some threats of maiming from my running partner Megan if I didn’t participate, I found myself on the start-line in Shinjuku on Sunday morning amongst 35,000 other crazy people.
To get us in the mood, we listened to a little bit of Salt-n-Pepa, a band who rocked the spandex and bum-bag look slightly better than I did during the race. Eventually, we crossed the starting gate which activated our timing chips and we starting clicking the kilometres off.
We took the early stages gently, packing in tight with the other runners. Amongst the serious runners clad in neon lycra, there were a surprising amount of people in fancy dress. Amongst the outfits were George Washington, Winnie The Pooh, bottles of whiskey, a wind turbine and, er, a box of tissues. How Japanese. Kudos also to the tiny elderly Japanese lady who sprinted past us, hi-fiving spectators who were admiring her huge rainbow afro…
The course was nice and flat, and with the cloudy weather and the temperature running at around 4-6 degrees throughout the race, the conditions were fairly decent. Heading towards half-way, we both felt good and hit the 21.1km mark in 2:18; long after the leaders had crossed the finish line, but on schedule for our targeted finishing time.
However, we were both aware of the impending ‘wall’, where the body starts taking energy from fat stores in the body rather than from food consumed, resulting in pain and fatigue setting in. Whilst we’d had a decent breakfast and taken on plenty of energy drinks and gels during the race, we both started to deteriorate as the three hour mark ticked by.
The final third of the race was painful to say the least. Whilst the crowd support remained strong and friendly faces were handing out sweets and chocolate to keep us going, my knees and thighs were aching with every stride. As we came into the last 6 or 7km, we had to stop several times to stretch to prevent the onset of cramp. Every traffic barrier had dozens of walking wounded clamped on them, their legs outstretched, grimacing as the rest of the field ambled past them. Nonetheless, we carried on plugging away as the checkpoints seemed to get further and further apart. We eventually came in sight of the finish and with a final burst of energy, managed to cross the line in 4:44.23 – just half a minute inside our target time of 4:45.
I really enjoyed the whole experience – just as I found in my first road race a few years ago in Bath, running with a friend makes the experience much more fun and fulfilling. Megan was marvellous company and we kept each other motivated on the way round.
After the race, we had a very long trek to get back to the hotel as we were filtered through numerous tunnels and buildings. When I finally got to the train station, freezing and hungry, I quickly realised that walking up and down stairs was going to a painful ordeal for some days to come – picture an elderly crab walking on hot coals and you’ve got the idea…. However, once we had showered, changed and sorted ourselves out, we headed down to the local branch of Matsu-ya and celebrated our achievement over a huge gyu-don (beef and rice bowl) washed down with some beer and painkillers which went some way to numbing the aches and pains of the race.
Whilst standing up for three hours on the train on the way back to Yamagata wasn’t an ideal way to finish off the day, we nonetheless reflected on what a great experience it was. I’m not sure whether I’ll do another marathon, but having had such a positive experience it’s certainly not put me off the idea of doing another one. If I do, I just hope I can persuade my gym to change the channels when I’m training for it…
Congrats on the finish! Every year my island has the Kumejima Marathon. It hugely impressive to me that people can really run that far, especially hup mountains! The costume running definitely makes thigns interesting. There’s even an award category for that here.
Thanks – now I’ve had a bit of a break, am considering whether to do another one next year. The Kumejima one sounds like an interesting option!