When is a race not a race?

This past week I heard that one of the groups I run with was going to to have a marathon on the weekend. In Japan marathon means anything from 3k to a ultra marathon and as I wanted to get a long run in I decided to contact them to find out the details. After Yoko, my friend, contacted them to get info for me, Gito-san called and gave me directions to the race. Actually he called me several times to make sure I understood exactly how to get there. I appreciated his kindness and his lack of nervousness about talking to a non-native speaker. Many people are quite shy/reserved about talking to "foreigners", but that is another story. Anyway..he was incredibly kind to me. He told me they would have a 5/10K and a half-marathon. I decided to run the half-marathon because I needed to do a long run on Sunday. A half marathon isn't really a long run, it is only 13.1 miles, I feel like it must be at least 14 to be a long run :) How is that for being obsessive compulsive...



So the next morning I got up early 5:30 and left the house at 6:30 to get there on time. After 1 bus ride, 1 train ride and a 15 minute walk, it took about 2 hours to get there, I arrived at the race site. It was on the banks of the Yodogawa river maybe the biggest river that runs through Osaka. This river is typical of many rivers in Japan. Picture a river, then a small bank, than a large flat area that stretches to another bank. On the flat area in most cities in Japan you will find baseball fields teaming with hundreds of young players every weekend. The riverbanks are basically parks. At the edge of the flat area the bank rises up again to a bicycle path that follows the river for the length of it.

I arrived there a bit late so after registration I had about 5 minutes to warm-up. I never had any really intention of racing the half-marathon so when people asked how fast I was going to run I said 1:40. Not fast but good workout pace. A couple of people said I should try for 1:20 or 1:30. I wasn't feeling very well. I had had a fever all week so I knew that I wasn't at my best. Anyway once the race started I knew I couldn't run it at training pace because if I did I would be in last place and it would be kind of embarrassing. So off we started with the first mile in 6:40. I knew I couldn't run that pace the whole way so I slowed down a bit and ran the next 9 miles at around 7 minute pace which to me felt like a lot of work. Unfortunately nobody was running that pace so I ran 95% of the race alone.

(I have to commend the organizers on their efficient use of space. As I said the race was along the river. It went out and back in one direction, past the starting point. Out and back in the other direction and then repeated itself. So we raced a half marathon in a relatively small piece of land without closing any roads.)

The last 3 miles were a bit of a struggle. I was freezing which is very unusual for me in a race so I started to cramp up a bit. Miles 11 and 12 were in about 7:20 and the last was about 7:00 for a final time of 1:34:00. This is not a particularly good time but considering I was sick the week before and I wasn't mentally prepared to race it was a good training effort.

After the race they had an awards ceremony where they gave out prizes and goods from sponsors. For my lowly 10th place I received a muffler and a pair of gloves. I think this is so much better than races in the US. When I was racing well, many moons ago, I won many trophies and ribbons which all went in some box to gather dust and rust. It is so much nicer to win something you can actually use. At Japanese races I have won so many cool things, when I do win. Rice, clothing, gift certificates...

Another thing I liked about this race was how old school it was. It is what I imagine races in the 60's and 70's used to be like. Small, informal and with a lot of serious runners. Anyway it was great fun.