The shibuya Ekiden changed its location this year from Oda athletic track and surrounds to inside Yoyogi Park. Each leg is 2.8 km. The Ekiden is for the community of Shibuya Ward, and since Namban Rengo's registered address is in Shibuya, we attend each year. Our numbers have really taken a bit of a jump lately, I suppose with a peak of interest in running due to the Tokyo Marathon and a bit of a raised profile for us.
So today we had more teams than ever before: 8 open mens, 3 masters mens, and 6 womens. Our top teams won the open mens (Gordon finally making it to the starting line and having a good run and Brett running with a broken toe) and womens divisions. Seeing Mika sprinting her guts out to catch a junior high school boy right at the end of the women's victory was a marvellous sight.
I was in the so-called masters A team. Our masters B team kicked our butts for three legs, and then poor Gareth, who had been unfairly drafted into the anchor position of Team B by the dastardly GPAA, was never going to hold off the flying Juergen. But alas, there was one team ahead of both of us, our arch enemies, the Shibuya Police. So we got 2nd and our Masters B came third, so not a bad effort overall. I was pretty happy with my run of 9:46 (3:29/km) on that fairly tight little course. A number of people said they thought the course was a bit short, and now that I think about it, I don't think I could have averaged 3:29 with all those twists and turns. Still, I know I worked very hard and was breathing like a steam train, so who knows...all I know is I ran hard and was happy enough with the result.
Due to family and some work commitments I wasn't able to get a long run in yesterday and had to settle for a squeezed-in 10k. So after the ekiden a group of us did not hang around but stowed bags in lockers at the nearest subway station (Harajuku) and ran to the Imperial Palace for a couple of laps and back to Harajuku for a 20 km run. With 5 km warmup before the race and the race itself and a few other odds and bobs I recorded about 31 km for the day, but not exactly comparable to a continuous 31 km. I was tired afterwards though!
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6 comments:
Sounds like what you did is much harder work than a normal 31k run.
Well done to your teams. And to you - 3:29 pace ... that's motoring!
Great day out at the races it would seem.
31km is 31km....it is all time on your feet. And I think the odd run spread out like you did is good training. You end up being on your feet for longer and generally have to cope with fluids/food in your belly if you have something after your race - which is all good practice. Ok so this your second week granted to you by the big fat Running Fairy. Use it wisely and have a great week.
You are certainly coming along well and I don't hear too much about pains so I presume you are remaining relatively injury free.
25 days to go now. Yipee...
Oh btw I can't see any rolling blogroll thingy on your blog?
Take the 3.29 - don't question it :-)
I can see the blogroll.
Thanks Tesso, thanks Clairie. I am very happy so far with the work of the running fairy. Yes, the injuries have subsided back to a "present, but manageable" level. So she is better than any old physiotherapist and much cheaper (I haven't actually heard the price yet, but I assume she is cheaper.
Clairie, the Blogroll is the list of blogs at the lower RHS of the page titled "Namban Bloggers". It doesn't "roll" as in scroll or anything like that, it is just a list of blogs and you create it by selecting a folder (or all) subscribed blogs in Bloglines, then Bloglines helps you create a bit of Java-powered code that you paste into your template. Now if I add a new subscription to that folder in Bloglines, it will automatically appear in the Blogroll on the Blogspot blog.
If you were tired afterwards, it must have been a good day Steve.
That's an impressive number of teams from your club. Congrats on the silver medal. 2.8k is a great distance for an Ekiden leg.
Well done with all that running around yesterday. And thanks for the info on the "Natto jiken."
Well I suppose I'll have to offer up my own apology for even thinking that it had some merit in the weight losing dept.
I don't know what I was thinking! I guess that I was desperate I mean I was facing having to give up drinking beer and eating mayonaise or simple eat the natto I love twice a day. You can see why I fell for it.
Yours in the spirit of penitence
Scott
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