Shibuya ekiden with the runner from Kingscliff

First up I'll just mention in passing that I had a couple of fairly unremarkable commuting runs to a seminar yesterday, about 8.5 km each. It was raining pretty hard during the return run, and cold. Miles in the bank?

But today was a real highlight with the visit by Michael, a Coolrunner from Kingscliff (I think his CR handle is "Runner from Kingscliff") on the Tweed coast, my place of origin. The visit fitted in nicely with the Shibuya Ekiden. Being only for citizens and company workers from Shibuya Ward, it is not a huge ekiden on the Japanese calendar, but still, it is a race, and we are eligible to enter as we are registered in Shibuya Ward. The legs are around 3 km each, so it is a bit of a sprint. Namban Rengo's masters teams have won the event a lot in the past, but two years ago (last year was a washout) the police or firies and some companies put in stronge teams and we did not make our single strongest team, so as a result I think our best result was fourth.

In the first event of the day, our men's open team of Jason, Brett, Zach, and Taro romped to victory, so that was a good sign. Then we were able to field two strong masters’ teams and one not so fast team. Michael was the first runner in Team B up against Jay in Team A; Jay is probably our best master’s runner over 5k to half marathon. Michael said he thought he should be able to run around 10 minutes, so it was going to be interesting. So it proved as they took off with Jay in the lead but Michael not far behind. A lap around the athletic track and then off around the streets of Shibuya. When they came back into the track Michael was in second place overall (Team 713 was in the lead) and leading Jay by about 5 seconds. A superb run from them both.

Michael handed off to Watanabe-san and I took the sash from Jay. Watanabe-san has not run with us much in recent years so I didn’t know enough about him to know whether I was a chance to catch him or not. I knew my form would not be in PB territory, but 3k is not a long distance to put the foot down. The knot in the sash had come undone when I got it and I think I lost another 5 seconds getting that sorted out. Then I put my head down but wasn't making much of an impression. At about half-way we came to an uphill incline and I realized the gap had closed somewhat. So I thought, here we go, he's fading. But he must have just been taking a breather because as hard as I worked, the gap only seemed to widen after that. He handed off to Bob and I handed off to Subash a good 20 seconds or so in arrears. Bob is a good bit faster than Subash, so that was it for our chance at first place. But the overall race was not over, and during that third leg Bob hauled in the runner from team 713. So Leg four started with Namban B (Michael's team) in first place, team 713 in second place, and Namban A in third place. Bob gave Juergen a lead that could not be breached, but Subash had a pretty good run and handed off to Bryan about 30 seconds in arrears of Team 713. Well, good old Bryan had a fantastic run and managed to overtake team 713 about 1 km from the finish, and while the guy came back at him and was just about popping a foo-foo valve down the home straight, Bryan held him off by about 5-10 seconds. So it was Namban one, two, with Team B upsetting Team A!! And Namban D came 6th!

Here is a photo of me and Michael holding the winner's flag (and Bob trying to get in on the act as well!):


And here is one of the Namban girls, just because they are lovely -- oh, and they managed to come 2nd and 6th in the women's. So it was a pretty darn good day out for the club. And it was terrific to meet Michael, and later his lovely wife and daughters at a big celebratory lunch at Pizza Express.