Marathon number 4, and I was feeling a lot of anxiety. The time limit is six hours, and after running just two days before in Curitiba in around 5:48, I was wondering how my legs would be. No time to waste, anyway.
My first task was to get to the race site and pay for my entry at the Trouble Desk. The shuttles were running right on schedule from the train station (across from my hotel) and after I passed the numbered packet pickup tables I found something that looked like it could be the right place. Problem is that very few in this area speak English, so it took us a while to agree that it was the Trouble Desk, and then to figure out what I was trying to do there. Finally they found my number and called Isono and told me to wait a minute. I was finally able to meet the man who had helped me so much for the past few days. He took me over to the bag pickup, and then showed me where the gym and the facilities were and then was back off to work.
Getting the business out of the way early, I now had nearly three hours before the race start. It wasn't very busy yet, so I walked around and then found a row of chairs in a hallway near the gym and snoozed a little bit. I had a protein bar for breakfast, but I was a little concerned that I hadn't eaten more or had enough to drink, since the start was so late in the day.
Communication was difficult, however there was a big enough crowd to follow to figure out where my corral was. We started the race at 10:30, and by the time I crossed the start line the clock was around 5 minutes. The start was downhill for the first 2K, which had me wondering how the end was going to feel. I saw the 1K mark and my pace felt pretty good, but didn't see another one for a while. We started with a loop around the downtown area, and crossed the 5K mat. The first aid station was at around 6.5K, and I took a minute to drink quite a bit to catch up. From then on, aid stations were at every 2.5K. As we worked our way out of town, we turned left somewhere close to 12K for a long out-and-back. The 40K was just after the corner, so as I went along I figured that the turn would be between 24K and 25K.
As we worked our way out, it felt to me as if we were running down hill most of the time. Believing that, I was trying to stay steady, anticipating a long last 17K worth of up hill after the turnaround. There were a couple up hill sections, but it felt predominantly like we were working our way down the valley. The course follows a river valley nestled in the mountains, with great views off in the distance. In spite of the mountains though, the elevation isn't very high above sea level.
It's a well supported course too, around 15K we got bananas, and progressing on we had other little treats--some kind of a candy--crunchy, sweet, a little spicy and really good. I reached the half-way in under 2:30. Right on schedule. Now on to the turn around. Approaching the turn, we got more bananas and little squares of chocolate. That was the appetizer. I made the turn at 3 hours on the clock, and right after passing the 25K mats there was a party. Drums beating, and a row of tables with hot chocolate, hot tea, and little triangles of rice. My split on that kilometer suffered a bit. :-)
The thing that surprised me the most was that it still felt like we were running down hill. In fact, there were a few hills on the way back, but they looked a lot worse on the way out. The hill I was anticipating at 30K was really not as sever as I had figured. I was still running easy and feeling good. Somewhere in the next couple of kilometers was another party. The locals were out with tables full of goodies, and I spotted two bottles of wine with empty cups hanging on top of them. What the heck--I was ahead of schedule. I stopped for a glass of wine, which my hosts took great joy in watching me drink. I may have been the only one to do that, given their surprised reaction. More people were passing out candy and little treats along the way, but I tried to concentrate and keep steady. Soon the up hill sections would kick in, but they weren't bad, and I was feeling great. It surprised me how many people were walking by that time--almost inconvenient trying to get around. A couple of times the wind picked up into our faces for only a little while until we rounded another bend, then would die down again.
Starting at 37K, there were countdown markers as well, so we'd see 37K, then 195 meters later 5K to go. More markers made the time feel like it was going by faster, and soon we were at 40K, then making the turn for home. There was a lot of up hill in this last section, but because I was passing a lot of people it didn't seem noticeable. One K to go and I decided to pass as many people as possible before the finish. I got to 22. Turned the final corner and crossed the finish line, feeling great and finishing in net time of just over 5:21.
Post race was, like everything else in this whole country, very well organized. Finisher shirt, then through lines of computer terminals where a finisher certificate was printed for us. I made my way toward the gym to get my jacket and pants before going out for hot chocolate and bowls of hot soup. The soup had meat, some noodles, and veggies, and some warm, salty broth. The chocolate had something like a marshmallow square. Both were served with chopsticks. It really hit the spot. Cups of green tea too.
I rode the shuttle back to the station and enjoyed a conversation with a guy who spoke English. We talked about work, kids, lots of thing--it was a real treat after being in so few places lately that I could actually have a conversation. He pointed out some restaurants as we approached the end so I knew which direction to go eat.
I went to dinner at a place called (get this) Japanese Restaurant. My main motivation for going there (other than hunger) was that they had menus with pictures. Given that I read not one character of Japanese, that was pretty important.
If anyone's thinking about running a marathon in Japan though, THIS IS THE ONE!! Fukuchiyama.
Have a great Thanksgiving everybody.
