Fuji Yoshida Fire Festival Road Race, 20 km

The photos are from the fire festival the night before the race. I won't say much about that except that it was an interesting night that featured too much beer and wine at the BBQ at our cottage, expensive taxi rides to the fire festival, a distressing encounter for the folk who stayed at the cottage with an ornery and stubborn old git whose car was blocked by one of ours, and a damp walk/jog in the rain halfway back to the cottage due to a long taxi queue (we were finally rescued in a cab by Gary and Mika).

By comparison, the race was a fairly uneventful affair. The experience would have been helped for Colin and myself if we had drunk about half the amount of alcohol the night before, or had twice the amount of sleep. But we were mercifully helped by the unseasonally cool 19 degree temperatures that set in overnight.

The race started inside a stadium, wound its way out and around the stadium for the first 600 m or so, all fairly flat and pleasant enough. But then we turned left onto the road and started running uphill. This was not an Ohyama Tozan type hill, but a steady significant grade of about 10%, and it went on, unrelenting, for three kilometers, most of it over an unsurfaced but smooth forest trail. When we turned around, we then proceeded to run downhill over similar grade slopes for a good four km, maybe more. The lungs might have enjoyed the break, but the quads soon started to complain. Then we turned around and ran uphill again for a couple of km, then downhill for several km. Did I mention that the hills were long? Basically, this race was a flat short start, a flat short finish, and 19 km of long, long uphills or downhills in between. Colin and I started fairly conservatively and let Satohi, Mika, Carol and Motozo run ahead, thinking perhaps we should catch at least some of them a bit later. But we were soon working hard. Maybe not our very hardest, but pretty darn close. I pulled away from Colin early, but then he caught up to me around the 8 or 9 km mark, just as I was thinking of trying to work an uphill a bit harder. We had a bried exchange of grunts, part of which was Colin letting me now that he had just worked really hard to get to me and was buggered. So I put my head down and kept going.

It was to be 17 or 18 km later that I would finally reel in Satohi (on the final 4 km of ascent to the finish), and I only overtook Mika at 19.4 km, within sight of the finish (and had to work my very hardest to do that). I never saw Carol or Motozo as they were a good several minutes ahead. Carol came seventh out of the women and I think beat David (Motozo) in the process. If I had not been hung over and took the race 100% seriously from the outset, there is still no guarantee that I could have matched either of them on that course. They had great runs, really a breakthrough for Carol. Her 89 minutes (or thereabouts) would have probably been good for a sub 90 minute half marathon on a flat course. David, too, if he keeps up his present training consistency, may be on track to finally get the 90 minute monkey off his back.

As for me, I recorded a time of about 93 minutes. Not bad under the circumstances. I am not sure of the exact time as some bloke decided to try and outsprint me down the home straight; my competitive juices kicked in and I tried to hold him off, each of us pushing ever harder. It was a dead heat and I was a mess when I finishedand it was a little whle befre I clicked my watch. My heart rate monitor recorded a maximum heart rate several beats higher than my previous maximum, and I think that is when it would have been.

Shins and quads very sore today. I hereby resolve not to get drunk the night before long gruelling races ever again. Honest. Cross my heart and hope to die ('cos if I do that again I probably will!)