Long run in Shimoda

The company jolly to Shimoda went pretty well, apart from the traffic coming back last night. You would not think that a 140-km trip on mostly expressway could take five hours, but in Japan this is sadly all too common.

On Saturday morning we visited an old gold mine that has been turned into a sort of museum. Interesting enough, but not exactly earth-shattering. During the afternoon en-route to Shimoda we took a boat ride and walk around some volcanic-ash derived coastal formations and called in around sunset at a spot with spectacular views from a cliff top. Got to Shimoda after 5:30, and with dinner scheduled for 6:30, that left no time for a run, only a bath in the hotel's onsen. I was OK about that as I felt my leg was making some improvement under the influence of Ibuprofen, and that I would get in a better run on Sunday by resting it on Saturday.

Dinner was not too boozy and I got to bed before 10:00. I had identified an approximately 3-km loop around a headland (does this link work? -- if so, it shows the loop). I slept pretty well and got up at 5:00 so I could finish in time to comfortably make it to breakfast by 9:00. It took me a while to get into the run. I had to stop a couple of times for the toilet and once went back to the hotel to see if I could escort the two lady runners in our party around one loop of the course, since it was fairly deserted and secluded in a few places, but much too pretty to miss. However the ladies did not show up on time so after waiting five minutes my chivalry meter expired and I ran back to the loop again. After this interrupted first 9 km I got into a rhythm of churning out laps at between 4:30 to 4:40 pace. I tallied up the total distance this morning and discovered it was 27.5 km, mostly at a pretty steady pace. Not bad under the circumstances, and my legs were really quite fresh for the rest of the day. A classic taper run.

My hamstring felt pretty good, but the discomfort was more noticeable in the general hip area, especially towards the front. I think it is fairly clear that the problems are to do with inflammation of the muscle attachments in this area. I got through the run without anything worse than mild pain/discomfort, so I feel quite optimistic that as I back off the mileage and keep up Ibuprofen, this problem will recede over the next two weeks. I do need to tread carefully though.

The hardest part is resisting the temptation to go out and pursue a bit more conditioning, and then to fight off the fear of losing condition by not running. So this is where the mental battle really begins. These pages will chronicle how successful I am at that over the next two weeks. If I am really successful, the posts will become less frequent as I run less and shorter as the runs become less eventful. We shall see.

The rest of Sunday we seemed to spend visiting waterfalls and wasabi-growing attractions (I ate a wasabi ice cream). The 5-hour drive home was made easier to endure by sharing a few beers and a 750-mL bottle of sake with Mr. Kitagawa. We also had some interesting language exchange, amongst which I learned the Japanese for "I have a full bladder!"