tokyo 2009 part-1

The day before the race;
I was feeling like doing “DNS” on the day before the marathon because I’ve strained my back since a couple of days before, so it’s been painful despite having acupuncture treatment, then I got a reply from Steve as; My advice is to rest as much as you can. Prepare your marathon stuff then stay in bed till morning. Then come prepared to run and even if you are feeling some discomfort, try to start the race and wait until 10 km and you are warmed up…abbr… See you in the morning. So, I have decided to run in the race.

Because of my back ache, I was going to skip it this time despite the odds-low race and first chance for me, but I changed my mind as positive. Since I have been training very hard, I had second thought as shouldn't miss it... so rest well in my bed all day and took a nap for a couple hours, so I couldn't sleep in the night.

On the race day;
I woke up at 4am in the morning, then realized that could sleep only for four hours but it was much better than staying awake all through the night. I finished eating breakfast before 5am, took some Ibuprofen to heal backache and dressed with the Namban singlet plus running shorts for the race as planned, gathered with friends, then I totally forgot about the pain, somehow I was confident of achieving my PB.

By the chance, bumped into some familiar faces; Chiba-san, Shiba-san, Taizo-san, Jay, Ed and Gerard at the starting point, so I had no time to be bored to wait for over 30minutes to start, just relaxed. Despite serious runner starting block(?), surprisingly some people costumed as a swan, dancers to have a fun.

By the time we were waiting, it looked like rain any time, and it blew but not so cold around 9am. After 5 minutes of the wheelchairs started, the starting gun for the marathon went off at 9:10am, and millions of pieces of confetti fall on us as usual, everybody started to go ahead.

I actually have been waiting for the start since I got in the entry list by lottery because I had never gotten the winning ticket two years in a low, that's why I must had to run it. I was very lucky because one of my best friends and training coach; Steve the Lacey offered me to run for whole distance, he helps and gives me advice how should I train and makes plan always, I really appreciate to him.

We trained together when we could have time especially for long distance pace run and tempo run. This time, we raised target time for speed workout from 10 to 20 sec for tempo run, so it was really hard to be accustomed the pace even though I wanted to. We set the strategy to finish under 3:15 this time, I have been tried it for a couple times but never succeed. I was confident of achieving it because my condition had been excellent in all races; Frostbite Half marathon, Ome 30km, and also regular workouts too... so we set to run at 4:38/km to 4:35/km pace by half point, and see condition what's going on then make running pace. I set my goals as...

1. Don't push too hard.
2. If I feel too much pain, then see condition.
3. Go easy at the beginning and don't use legs.
4. Have a fun and relish pleasures of race.
5. Making PB is not so important this time.

After started, we started to run easier, it took over 5min/km for the first 1km because the place was crowded and it was 30second to cross the line, Steve introduced me skyscrapers in Nishi-Shinjuku. Sounded like his favorite is Tokyo Mode-Gakuen building.

It was great scenery to see lots of spectators were cheering on side-walk and lots of volunteer people, everybody said "Ganbatte" and "Fight". Some people called me my name and some people called us "Namban Rengo" to cheer on, so glad to run in Tokyo for only 5km. I kept on running easier and like free-wheeling, tried not to use legs as strategy. Steve looked so happy to run in his 3rd Tokyo Marathon, screaming something, singing songs and waved his hands so he made me feel a fun, but I preferred to save energy for the end, so I said I'm listening but I can't answer you, sorry!