Tokyo Marathon 2016

On Feb 28, Sunday, Tokyo Marathon 2016 took place.
I saw the first one and a half hours on TV at home,
and the next 45 minutes on the train while heading to Central Tokyo,
and the following two hours and 50 minutes
at the 34 K mark in front of the Mitsukoshi Department Store in Ginza.

Two things stood out as things that are worth mentioning.
The first is the fun of cheering.
The second is some exciting elements of the race itself.
Let me illustrate them one by one.

<Fun of Cheering>
Cheering on runners at marathons is fun.
It's especially so when the race is as big as the Tokyo Marathon.
There are plenty of good cheering spots.
But my most favorite is the 34 K mark, in front of the Mitsukoshi Department Store in Ginze.
There are a number of reasons why I like it.
First, the energy level is very high there. It's easy access from everywhere;
there is a hub station of Metro there where three different lines cross.
Also, there are plenty of department stores there,
so even those who just happen to be there for shopping
stop and watch the runners go by.
Furthermore, it is one of the official photo-shooting spots,
and coming runners all smile and do their best to have their best shot taken.
But my biggest reason is that this is the area where runners need the biggest support
from cheerers.
For most leisure runners who run a full marathon for the first time
the second half is extremely challenging.
Some have a cramp in their legs.
Others feel pain in their knees.
In the Tokyo Marathon the general atmosphere remains upbeat
until the 28 K mark, which is the Kaminarimon Gate in Asakusa.
The size of spectators is enormous,
and the volume of cheering voices is staggering.
Runners can forget about their pain for a while.
But once you leave the area,
the number of spectators decreases,
and your pain feels foregrounded.
It is in the Ginza area where the runners hear roaring cheers and receive high fives once again.
They store up here as much positive energy from cheerers as they can
before they embark on the journey to the finish line.
I know it because I ran the race twice, once in 2011, and again in 2012.

So as soon as I reached Ginza, I went straight to the best cheering spot,
and starting giving high fives and encouraging yells to passing runners.
I did it from 12:00 to 14:50, for nearly three hours, in half squat position
so that the height of my high five wouldn't be too high for runners;
you know when you have run more than 30 K,
even raising your arm feels hard.

I was originally going to do the cheering until 13:00 and then leave,
but the positive energy of coming runners was so overwhelming
that I just couldn't leave there until the cutoff time came and runners were no longer
allowed to continue the race...
It was that dramatic!

<Highlights of the Race>
Now, let me tell you about the second theme--the race itself.
As for as I'm concerned, the highlight of the race this year is
extraordinary performances by college runners.

The first runner worth mentioning is Mr. Yuma Hattori of Toyo University.
He is my most favorite.
I was impressed with his performance earlier this year in the Hakone Ekiden Race.
He ran Section 3, and marked the best time for the section.
He had allegedly trained so hard with over-30 K distance,
and his strong legs and stability of running form seemed to prove it was true.
In Sunday's race he showed the same stability until the 30 K mark,
when he suddenly put on a spurt and went ahead of the pack.
He soon took over his former Hakone rival Mr. Kenta Murayama,
who had stuck with the leading pack until the 22 K mark.
I thought Mr. Hattori would finish first among all Japanese runners.
But it was not as easy as that.

He started slowing down after going over a series of over-bridges,
and eventually he was overtaken by four runners,
two of whom were college runners, Mr. Shimoda and Mr. Isshiki of Aoyama Gakuen University.

Mr. Shimoda renewed the best record for teenage runners at his first try at full marathon,
and surprised everyone including his college roommate Mr. Isshiki,
who once said in a documentary that he was superior to Mr. Shimoda
in terms of stamina.

Although, Mr. Yuma Hattori was beaten by the two runners from his rival school,
I want him to be proud of making a spurt at 30 K to stir the equilibrium.
It takes a brave heart to do it.
His action proves he has the guts to take risks,
and his mindset must have been backed up by his confidence in all the hard training he went through.
Someday he will rise from this defeat, I am sure.

To conclude this essay,
Tokyo Marathon 2016 was an extremely exciting event
both from runner's and spectator's perspective.

I will go to the venue next year again,
whether I win the ticket to the race in the lottery and run it,
or I lose, and watch the race from the street.

Cruise K's (5K)

I did cruise K's.
It's 5 sets of 1 K with alternate intervals of 30 seconds and 60 seconds.
I began with 1 K and a 30-second rest.
I then ran another 1 K, but this time I took a one-minute rest
before doing my third set.

One benefit of alternating a short rest and one that's slightly longer
is that the longer rest feels like an incentive after doing the set.
When two sets are compared, one after a shorter rest and the other after a longer rest,
the set after the shorter rest is harder.
But since the longer rest is waiting after the set,
you can keep your motivation.

It's much more motivating than doing all the sets with the same interval.

Today I ran all sets at my half-marathon pace,
which is 4:50/K.

You can find my result today below:

1st Set 4:45
Rest 30 seconds
2nd Set 4:35
Rest 60 seconds
3rd Set 4:41
Rest 30 seconds
4th Set 4:43
Rest 60 seonds
5th Set 4:48

I was originally planning to cover 10 K,
but I felt I did enough for the night.
Plus I was expecting an early start Saturday morning,
so I called it a day.

Swim

I went swimming this morning at a gym in my neighborhood. Madam Fumiko has membership there, and she brought home two visitor’s coupons. It expired at the end of this month, so I decided to use it so as not to waste it.

Two nice-looking women greeted me as I entered the building, one in her late twenties, and the other probably in her mid forties. The older woman guided me to a low counter on one side of the reception, asked me to take a seat and fill out a form.

When I handed out my visitor’s coupon, I said I got it from my family, so they knew that Madam Fumiko and I were family, but no mention was made about it. I thought they were excessively cautious not to sound too salesperson-like. Something like “Oh, your must be Ms. Yamagata’s son!” wouldn’t have hurt.

But anyhow, soon after I filled out the form, a young nice-looking man took over and guided me to the men’s locker room. Elderly members were slowly changing into fitness outfit there. He explained how the locker worked, and said the pool was downstairs. He said there was another guy at the pool, and he would guide me there, but as he said so, the guy in charge the pool area came up to the locker room by chance, so he and I got to exchange “hi”s there. There was a large bathroom with a sauna and everything next to the locker room, but I ignored it and went straight to the pool.

The pool was already quite crowded with swimmers, mostly elderly women. They should be called walkers because most of them were just wading in shallow water that’s only 1 meter high. There were only four lanes: one for walkers, another for swimmers, and the other two for long-distance swimmers. I took one for long-distance swimmers and swam 1 K in three different styles: crawl, breast stroke, and back.

Once out of the pool, I went to the bathroom and soaked in the bathtub for a while. There had been some old gents when I got there. They were talking about a divorce case of a friend of theirs. One said, “If the wife wants a divorce, that’s it. There’s nothing he can do about it.” I thought the reverse is also true, but of course I didn’t join their conversation…

Quickly shampooing my hair, I got out, put on my regular clothes, went downstairs, and tried to return my visitor’s card. I was kind of expecting something like, “How was it?” But there was nothing but “Otsukaresama”. The staff were kind of low-key, and looked afraid of making any sort of sales approach. Perhaps they did so out of respect to Madam Fumiko who is the least vulnerable person to sales approaches. Or not?

Anyhow, thanks to the free coupon, I was able to start a new week with a tremendously refreshing feeling. There is one more coupon left. I might want to use it on Friday. 

The 50th Ohme 30 K Road Race Running Report

At 11:30 am on Feb. 21, the runners heard the bang, and the 50th Ohme 30 K road race had begun.

The start area was so congested that it took me almost four minutes to finally cross the official start line. On a stage set at the start area stood two eminent former marathon stars, Mr. Toshihiko Seko and Ms. Naoko Takahashi. They were greeted with waves of hands from passing runners. But soon they went behind them, and the festive atmosphere was replaced with breathing noises and increasing body heat.

The first 5 K is, strategically speaking, not an easy phase.
Though you still have your energy all stored up,
if you are not able to set a good pace at this phase,
it becomes difficult to make up for the delay later.
But if you increase your pace too much, trying to cancel the loss from the congestion right after the start,
you can use up the energy needed in the second half of the race.
I carefully found space among runners and overtook quite a few
so that I'd be able to run with a faster group of runners,
which is one of the keys to hammering out a good time.

Near the 6 K mark there was the first aid station.
I had half a cup of water, and poured the rest over my head to cool off my body heat.
Daytime highs were expected to reach 12 degrees Celsius,
and heat management was important.

As the race continued, the crowds became more and more spread out,
and passage through runners got easier,
but sudden increase of pace could be fatal later,
so I closely monitored my lap,
and stuck to the 5:00/K pace.

Near the 10 K mark, a friend of mine and former marathon runner Taeko-san awaited as an aid worker from ＪＡＡＦ. I called her name and waved my hand at her. She waved her hand back at me and shouted, "Ganbatte!"

It was shortly after this that I saw the top athletes already returning from the turning point.
First came two male runners, one black African-looking and the other Asian.
And then in less than 30 seconds came famous Mr. Yuki Kawauchi with a few other runners.
I called his name for encouragement, and several more shouts followed mine as he went past us.

After that an increased number of runners came down from the opposite direction.
I tried to find my faster friends. I kept on doing it for almost ten minutes without any success.
And finally my eyes became sore and I gave up and concentrated on running.

The size of the cheering crowd suddenly got larger near the turning point.
A large sign came in sight above the road that said "Ohme Marathon Turning Point".
A large cone was insight, and it came nearer and nearer with every step,
and in no time I found myself facing the runners who were coming up.
Soon after that I crossed the 15 K line and quickly checked my lap.
I was almost two minutes faster than in 2015.
If I could keep the same pace, I would be able to renew my best.

But no good things lasted forever. I felt pain in my right knee near the 18 K mark. It was the kind of pain I felt both in the full marathon in Tateyama and the 45 K weekend challenge between work and home.
When I ran from work to home, the pain didn't go away no matter what I did.
In the marathon in Tateyama, I changed my running form and overcame it.
I had no choice but bet on the hope that it would go away if I did what I had done in Tateyama.

So I stopped running in small strides, and started taking wider strides and landing on heels to allow the cushion on the sole to absorb the shock of landing. I carried on with this strategy for the next several kilometers. Fortunately it worked miraculously!! For the second time in my life I was successfully able to overcome serious leg pain during the race with a strategic measure.
Though small pain came back every now and then, it was never serious enough to distract my mind.

When the last long uphill leading to JR Miyanodaira Station was finally conquered,
what awaited me was a long stretch of straight road below and an endless blue sky with sporadic clouds shining in the sun above. I ran down like a snow ball gathering momentum as it rolled down a hill.

I saw a sign saying 4 K to finish. Then 3 K, and 2 K. Both sides of the road were crowded with cheerers, each shouting their own words to congratulate the runners on completing the race. I heard one of them say, "Three more traffic lights to pass." I passed one. Then another. The next was the last. Suddenly I had a dopamine rush and felt a happy hormone traveled through my entire body from head to toe. All pain was gone and the full strength of the entire universe was with me. I spotted my bilingual companion on my left trying to take my photos at the last intersection before the goal. I smiled into her camera as I cornered like I was on rails. A second later I was on the final stretch. The arch above the finish line was visible. It was made with balloons in all colors. The crowds of cheerers were the largest. Runners were throwing both of their hands in the air ahead. I could only see their back. But I knew they were smiling with joy. The arch came nearer. And nearer. And finally gone! I was on the other side of the finish line! The race was over. The whole world felt unreal. The roars of the cheerers mush be there, but they were inaudible. I was a ball of energy just burned out for a moment...

And suddenly a tremendous feeling of joy engulfed my whole body, and I felt like I was inside a large balloon of happiness flying eternally in timeless space...

3 K Pace Run

I did my last training before the 50th Ohme 30 K Road Race.

Tonight's training was 3 K Pace Run.

I ran 3 K at my 10 K pace, which is 4:30/K.

The main purpose of this training is to stimulate the leg muscles and cardio,

without leaving unrecoverable fatigue in the legs.

I went around a park whose circumference is 650 M four times, and then ran another 400 M to cover altogether 3 K.

The results are as follows:

1st 650 M: 2:40

2nd 650 M: 2:52

3rd 650 M: 2:47

4th 650 M: 2:51

Last 400 M: 1:41

Total: 12:53

Average Pace: 4:18/K

Not bad.

3.9 K Build-Up Training

With five more days remaining before the 50th Ohme 30 K Road Race
I did 3.9 build-up training to stimulate my leg muscles and cardio vascular system.
I started off at my half marathon pace, going around a 650 M track twice in 6:17.
In the next lap I increased the pace by 13 seconds to finish at 6:04.
In the last lap I increased the pace even further, aiming to cover 1.3 K in 5:51,
but ended up coming back in 5:40!
That's equivalent to running 1 K in 4:21. Not bad at all.

There was not the kind of pain I had felt in the 40+ K run this past Saturday.
In fact, there was no pain at all in any of my leg joints, muscles, and tendons.
It's a pretty promising sign.
The only thing I should be careful of is not overdoing.
I am going to give my legs a good rest tomorrow.
Some core training is the only exercise that's scheduled.
It's mainly body weight, and doesn't put too much stress
on the leg muscles used in running.
Intensity is not so high either.
It's just some light exercise scheduled in the morning
that I do to wake myself up and get in gear.

My next running training is the last before the race.
It's scheduled on Friday night.
It's 3 K pace run just to stimulate the leg muscles and cardio.
Anything that beyond that distance in my case have the risk of
leaving unrecoverable fatigue in the legs,
and should be avoided.

Ohme 30 K Road Race

Two days have passed since I completed my weekend 40+ K running project. I feel fully recovered. The slight knee pain in both of my knees seems gone. My body feels lighter when I run up stairs. Soreness in the neck and shoulders is completely absent. I feel ready to finalize my preparation for the 50^th Ohme 30 K Road Race that takes place this coming Sunday in Ohme City in western Tokyo.

I covered marathon distance in training twice in the last 17 days. So I feel least worried in terms of my stamina. My only concern is fatigue resistance when running at a fast pace. Though it’s bad news for me, there isn’t much to do with it at this stage of training. All I can do is maintain my condition. For that purpose, there are only a couple of exercises left to the runner. Core training is one. It helps tone your body balance required while running without fatiguing your legs too much. Another is short speed training such as 3 K build-up. You begin to run at a certain pace, and progressively raise your pace by 10 seconds or so per K. For example, if you run the first 1 K at 4:50/K, your next lap should be 4:40, and the last 4:30. This is to stimulate your cardio-vascular system by pre-conditioning it to cope with the change of pace that inevitably takes place at the race.

What’s most important in the last three days before the race is having good food and storing up enough energy in your body by having good rest. With diet, there isn’t much to worry about. If you eat clean most of the time, you can just stick with it. And you can eat just a little bit more of carb if any because carb is a main source of energy in long distance running. Incidentally, though rest is vitally important, too much relaxation is not too good. Some running experts recommend a short fast run on the day before the race just to stimulate your leg muscles and cardio. It will be a 3 to 5 K session at your 10 K pace. In my case it’s 4:30/K. As far as I’m concerned, I will probably do a 3 K fast run at 4:30/K pace on Friday night since I stay at a hotel in Hachioji on the night before the race, and exercising in an unfamiliar town doesn’t seem like a good idea.

My training schedule before the race is as follows:

<Tue> 3.9 K Build Up

<Wed> Core Training & Stretching

<Thurs>Stretching & Rest

<Fri> 3 K Pace Run at 4:30/K

<Sat> Stretching & Rest

45 K Run Between Office and Home

On Feb. 13, Saturday, 2016 I ran home from my office, which is over 40 K away.
I left my office building at exactly 6:00 P.M.
I ran up a steep hill behind the building at a comfortable pace and ran along a side of the Diet building to reach the moat around the Imperial Palace.
Running awhile along the moat the bright neon lights from the Sukiyabashi area came in sight.
After passing several intersections I found myself running among crowds of people
in the most fashionable area in Tokyo--Ginza.
The streets were packed with couples enjoying a happy time together
on Valentine's Day.
Once off Chuo Street and into a narrower street leading to Hamacho,
the number of pedestrians gradually became smaller and smaller.
In no time I hit the Sumida river, and after taking a few turns,
I was on Route 14 that connects Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture.
With the Sobu Line on my left I kept straight along the national road.
Running along Route 14 was nice and pleasant.
At every two kilometers or so I saw a lively shopping district that had developed around a station.
Though I didn't take any break just the prospect of a shopping area appearing every now and then gave me a sense of security.
Around the 20 K mark after departure I had to make a choice.
Route 14 split into three ways.
One was a toll toad and you couldn't take it unless you were driving.
Another was the regular extension of Route 14.
But this was kind of a detour into Chiba.
The last choice went all the way to the entrance to the toll road,
and took a right to go through a minor road to cross a river to get into Chiba.
I had never taken that route, but since it appeared to the shortest way,
I decided to take it.
But this turned out to be a big mistake.
I was checking my route on an app called Navi Walk on my cell.
It had been a useful tool most of the time,
but that night my mind was unclear from fatigue
and I took a wrong turn and ended up running extra 5 K without realizing it
until I came home.
Meanwhile it started raining and winds got harder.
I felt lonely and miserable, running where I had never run before.
I started feeling thirsty, but a convenience store was nowhere to be seen.
I had no choice but going on.
Almost two and half hours after departure
I took my first break at Lawson's in Myouden.
I finished a bottle of Pocari Sweat quickly,
and started again to aim for Yoshinoya Beef Restaurant in Nishifunabashi
where I was planning to have dinner.
The way to the next rest point looked easy on the map,
but when I reached an intersection on a toll road,
passage looked blocked by construction work,
and I was afraid that I had to turn back the way I had come.
Luckily after roaming around for several minutes
I was able to find a temporary sidewalk to take me over to the other side of the toll road.
The restaurant was not for ahead.
But then the rain got harder, and the temperature started coming down.
I untied my windbreaker that I had wrapped around my waist, and put it on.
It made a big difference, and now I felt less cold.
An hour after my first major break in Myoden I finally reached Nishifunabashi.
I filled my stomach with a bowl of rice with sweet and salty boiled beef on top.
My app said there was 19.2 K more to go.
There was nothing unfamiliar anymore from there to home.
I had run the same route before.
But it was night, and the weather was bad.
Plus I had already run more that 20 K.
There was a world of difference between running the same distance afresh
and doing it after already running almost the same distance.
However, the remaining Ks turned out to be much much harder than I thought.
One reason was I was more tired than I thought I was.
There was a party on Thursday.
I had a little too much too drink.
Plus, I hadn't had enough sleep on Friday night.
With all these factors combined with the bad weather and late hours,
I wasn't as focused as I usually was at races.
But I didn't want to give up.
So I accepted all the unfavorable factors and decided to go slow.
With a little more than 10 K remaining,
my right knee started hurting.
The same happened in the full marathon in Tateyama earlier,
and at that time I overcame it by changing my running from,
taking wider strides and landing on the heel to allow the cushion of the sole
to absorb the landing shock instead of having my knee do the job.
But tonight it didn't work as well as it had at the race.
In no time my right knee started hurting,
and from that point on I had to stop at every 100 meters,
to bend and stretch my knees.
This significantly slowed down my pace,
and when the lights from my hometown were finally in sight
it was already over an hour later than my originally estimated arrival time.
But who cares?
I was finally going to make it.
I wanted to cry with pain, but tears never came out.
Instead I found myself laughing like a mad man,
because I was just so happy the journey was finally going to be over.
I passed some construction works fixing the road.
I almost hugged one of them with job, but of course I didn't.
I passed a few gentlemen smoking outside a ramen shop,
and imagined their smoke-filled degenerate lungs and felt an overwhelming feeling of superiority.
In no time I was standing by my scooter parked near the station.
I put on my helmet, started the engine and headed home.
Compared with dragging my legs in pain, riding the scooter was like
traveling on Monkey King's Flying Nimbus.
I literally felt like I was flying in the air!

What did I do after I got home?
Well, my eyes are getting heavy, so I would like to write about it later.

On Bed vs Futon

 I have lived more than half of my entire life choosing a bed for my sleeping equipment rather than futon, but yet I much prefer sleeping in the latter. Therefore, I demolished my bed last year which I had used for more than 40 years since childhood, and now I sleep in futon every night.

I don’t prefer sleeping in futon without reasons.

Here are but a few of them.

<Greater Freedom to Use Limited Space>

One obvious reason is that futon gives you greater freedom to use what limited space you have. For example, your bedroom is usually entirely occupied by your bed. You cannot fold it easily to put it into a nearby storage room unless your bed is a foldable one. A large bed would leave you very little space to do other things. On the other hand, use of futon allows you to use your bedroom (in this case it should be called ‘futon-room’, perhaps?) for entirely new purposes. For example, I spread my futon in the guest room of my residence. When morning comes and I put the futon in the closet, what was my bedroom during the night becomes a guest room again, ready to welcome visitors if any.

<Perfect Exercise to Start a Day>

Putting your futon back in the closet every morning is a good exercise. There are a number of items you need to fold and carry. Folding these items involves multiple joint movements. So does carrying them. Large pieces of futon are moderately heavy. Carrying them stimulates your back and thigh muscles without hurting them. By the time you have put all items away, your heart rates are slightly up, and you are fully awake, ready for the day.

<Discipline>

Daily futon folding can be a easy way to discipline yourself. One way to nurture self-discipline in your mind-body is by respecting boundaries in your daily life. By ritualistically repeating the task of futon folding after waking up before starting all the other important activity at the start of the day such as getting dressed and having breakfast, you clearly demarcate between the end of your rest phase and the beginning of the work phase. In fact, if you a top performer in your field, this seemingly tedious repetition cannot be easily neglected. This is because Mr. Harada, who is a former teacher and track team couch of Matsumushi Junior High School and now a seminar instructor, once advised his students to help their parents with house chores. According to him, the habit of doing small daily routines makes a strong mind that enables one to do things that are more difficult later. I feel the same can be said with the routine of spreading futon at night and folding it in the morning. After doing it day after day, other small home maintenance activities are also felt to be easy. And your household is generally kept nice and tidy, compared with those resided in by owners without such a daily habit.

There are countless other advantages of futon over bed. Moving is a lot easier. It can be fluffy again if you ask a pro. You can make several cushions from an old piece of futon. It is easier than a mattress to take out under the sun for drying and sanitizing.

To conclude, futon, traditional Japanese sleeping equipment, offers so many merits over beds to its user, and is highly recommendable to live a healthy and organized life. I would not say beds suck because I can certainly see their merits. Once you put a bed in a room, it’s there forever. You can throw yourself on it whenever you want to. You can sit on the edge, using it like a chair also. These are all merits of beds that I myself once enjoyed, and that I would if I had one. But nevertheless, I will probably never buy a bed for the rest of my life, and will stick to futon. I simply cannot resist all the Japanese traditional wisdom folded into it…

Interval Training: Cruise Ks 10 × 1K

With eleven days remaining before the 50th Ohme 30 K Road Race

I did interval training called cruise Ks. It is essentially a sustained effort of running 10 K broken into smaller chunks consisting of 10 sets of 1 K with a short recovery period between repetitions. 

The primary merits of the training are threefold.

One is that it is a good way to get in some lactate threshold work.

You can increase the intensity of the workout without making it to hard to continue.

Another is that you can keep your motivation more easily than when you run the same distance without a rest.

In today's workout I kept my half-marathon pace of 4:50/K.

It's not easy to keep that pace continuously.

But in cruise Ks a short rest awaits you after each rep.

It's kind of a reward after a brief push.

And you can reset your motivation after each rest.

The last merit is the same as all the other Ks.

It helps you develop a very good sense of race rhythm.

In today's workout I changed the duration of rest between 30 and 60 seconds.

When you set off for a new rep after a shorter rest,

it's as challenging as running the same distance at a faster pace.

Physical merits of this alteration are yet to known to me,

but it certainly made the workout more interesting, 

and the whole workout felt shorter in time when it was done

than when I ran the same distance without a break,

though the truth of them matter is the latter takes much shorter time.

This coming Sunday I would like to go for a 20+ slow jog.

I haven't decided where.

But hopefully it will be some quite area with beautiful nature and scenic landscape. 


Today's result is as follows:

Set 1: 4:42
Rest: 30 seconds
Set 2: 4:30
Rest: 60 seconds
Set 3: 4:42
Rest: 30 seconds
Set 4: 4:45
Rest: 60 seconds
Set 5: 4:47
Rest: 30 seconds
Set 6: 4:51
Rest: 60 seconds

Set 5: 4:47
Rest: 30 seconds
Set 6: 4:51
Rest: 60 seconds
Set 7: 4:52
Rest: 30 seconds
Set 8: 4:39
Rest: 60 seconds

Set 9: 4:41
Rest: 30 seconds
Set 10: 4:37

Interval Training: Mixed Ks

I did 10 × 1 K interval training today.
I mixed three different paces: marathon pace, half-marathon pace, and 10 K pace.
I ran the first set at marathon pace, 5:40/K,
took a 30-second rest,
and quickly set off for the second set,
which was run at half-marathon pace, 4:50/K.
I took a little longer rest, a minute, after finishing the half-marathon pace K.
The third set was run at 10 K pace,
which is 4:30/K.
The rest after the 10 K pace run is the longest, two minutes.
After taking the rest I repeated the same cycle two more time,
and wrapped up the training by running the last set
at marathon pace again.
It took me 59 minutes 17 seconds to finish today's training.
It was challenging, but not painful.
A good thing about mixed Ks is
that you can activate different systems in one training,
by changing the pace.
Also, running at a fast is less painful
because you progressively increase the challenge.
Plus, the duration of the rest is adjusted
depending on the pace.
I would like to do it again.
Hopefully, I can cover 12 K next time.
We'll see...

Today's result is as follows:

Set 1: 5:15
Set 2: 4:35
Set 3: 4:22
Set 4: 5:13
Set 5: 4:45
Set 6: 4:22
Set 7: 5:29
Set 8: 4:42
Set 9: 4:27
Set 10: 5:27

Revenger's 42.195 K

April 19, 2015 is a day I will never forget.
I ran Kasumigaura Marathon, and it was a terrible race.
Both of my legs suffered a serious pain after 28 K,
and the rest of the race was nothing but a torture.

The poor result was caused by a number of reasons.
One was lack of practice.
The previous month was very busy with seminars,
and I had no choice but give priority to the job.
Another reason was lack of motivation.
Two months before the full marathon,
I had run the Ohme 30 K Road Race,
and renewed my personal best time.
The training I had done for the race was so hard
that I was simply burned out.

After the race I was so disappointed
that I wanted to shift my mind
off long-distance running,
and spent more time cycling.

I even thought that running was not for me.
I started looking for all kinds of excuses
why all the hard work wouldn't pay off.

But eventually I overcame the negative mental attitude.
Two things helped me.
One was my friend.
I have a number of running friends.
Some of them are older than me.
Yet one of them renewed his personal best.
I thought age wasn't an issue at all.

The other is my professional pride.
As a professional English trainer,
I have seen so many students lose motivation
after a temporary failure.
Every time that happens, I always encourage them to
carry on with their training,
saying, "Training never betrays you."
I wanted to live what I say in my profession in my other passion also.

I focused my time and energy once again on long-distance running.
I ran day and night, even on freezing nights.

And the race day came.
I ran.
I finished.
And the time was the second best in the six full marathons I had run.

All the bad memories of Kasumigaura Marthon vanished,
and rays of hope shone down on me again.

Running is not 'not for me'.
I WILL continue to run, run, and run.

The next big race is the Ohme 30 K Road Race on Feb. 21.
My personal best time is 2:38:18 (Net: 2:34:29)
My goal this year is to finish under 2:30:00 (net).

A Twist on 1,000-Meter Repeats: Alternating Ks

Three days after running a full marathon in Tateyama,

I felt fully recovered, so I decided to hit the road again

to have interval training.

The interval training I did tonight is called alternating Ks.

Basically it's 12 × 1K,but you alternate

between marathon pace (5:40/km)and half-marathon pace (4:50/km)

with a 30-second rest after the marathon pace run

and a one-minute rest after the half-marathon pace one.

The purpose of this is to improve fatigue resistance

and also to develop a better sense of race rhythm.

It's also far less boring than running 12 K continuously 

more or less at the same pace.

Tonight's result is as follows:

1st Set: 5:15

2nd Set: 4:36

3rd Set 5:24

4th Set: 4:42

5th Set: 5:24

6th Set: 4:40

7th Set: 5:17

8th Set: 4:48

9th Set: 5:34

10th Set: 4:36

11th Set: 5:24

Last Set : 4:32