Forgive the length of this post, but this is taken from an article i wrote for the monthly magazine of the running club that i belong to in the UK...'For those who watch the TV series ‘24’...
....“the date is the 18th February 2007, it’s the day of the Tokyo marathon. the following occurs between the hours of 09:10 and 15:10…this is the longest day of my life…”
I’ve lived in Japan now for about 6 months, I live in a city called niigata, in the north(ish) of Japan, about 2 bullet train hours north/west of Tokyo. Niigata gets its winter weather from Russia/Siberia, and its summer weather from the south, hence the summers are hot (around 35 Celsius on a good day)…however the winters are cold…really cold (pay attention…that’s an important part of the story…). Niigata may just be the perfect place to live. I live about 3 mins drive from the beach, and about 45 mins from the nearest ski/snowboard resort. It’s a great location, and don’t even get me started on Japan as a whole. I love Japan entirely, and could verse all day about why Japan is such an amazing place, and why the Japanese are some of the nicest people on the planet…but that would take all day…needless to say…Japan is an amazing place and the Japanese are some of the nicest people on the planet.
In terms of running, ive been running since the dawn of time, (not literally obviously…I did have a break or two), in fact from about the age of 9?? And have been a member of the Steel City Striders Running Club since about that time also, in fact, my mum, dad and brother also have. My dad had run marathons, and my mum has done the London marathon twice, and I guess its always been a goal of mine to do one. I have done a few half marathons, in most recent times the Kuala Lumpur half last year (of which I believe that I still hold the club record for??? go check the record books…) anyway, it was a mildly warm day in late October last year that I got an email proclaiming my successful entry in the 2007 Tokyo marathon…so to the training…ill keep it brief, lets face it, marathon training is a dull as… to do, let alone read about.
Near my house, there is a long long long coastal road, really rugged and incredibly beautiful, it runs for miles along the sea and is perfect for running…apart from the fact that it gets insanely cold. For the road planners amongst you, you’ll know that japans roads are all in grid system, and hence, you get roads and traffic lights about every 30 metres...i kid you not, so running inland would have been a pain to keep stopping and starting…so I stuck to the beautiful coast road (I soon realised that its not quite as beautiful during the night with no street lights or pavements to speak of). id managed to get up to a respectable distance but got injured just before xmas, had a really sore hip and knee…possibly caused by the stiff clutch on my new/second hand Subaru Imperza WRX…(don’t even get me started on that rocket car…) I think that a combination of the driving and the fact that ive been doing lots and lots of sport since I was about 7 meant that my joints couldn’t really take a pounding like they used to. I resigned myself to training indoors on a treadmill…reduces the impact on my knees and was decidedly warmer. I remember my first ‘long’ treadmill run, id been going for about 7 minutes and was bored, I managed to look at the clock on the machine about every 30 seconds thinking it had been about 5 mins…god treadmills are boring!! I just became a perpetual clock watcher…I managed 30 mins that night before I couldn’t stand the boredom anymore. By a few weeks ago id managed to get up to 2 hours (with the help of an Ipod and a bit of music…as an aside though, I cannot run with music, I tend to change my pace/stride to match the beat of the music, it was crazy, when I had the Prodigy on, I would take tiny but thumping steps and when a Coldplay (just an example!) song came on, id almost bound 3 metres at a time so that my step matched the beat of the music….however, the thought of listening to the dum-whir-dum-whi-dum-whir-dum-whir of the treadmill made me perceiver with the tunes.)
Unfortunately though, all this meant that I had only really done 13 miles/21km training runs….only half of the marathon distance. I had managed one freak 30km run outdoors once which nearly crippled me.
So let us fast forward the 4 months of dull boring tedious “id rather be down the pub” training with some kind of photo montage - fast forwarded film footage set to some uber cool motivational Rocky style music…
…And so we arrive (as the rocky music fades) to Saturday 17th February 2007. im up at 6am to get a train to central niigata to get the 09:09 bullet train to Tokyo. (24 hours and 1 minute to the race start!). Im on my own, but my good friend Gareth will be joining me in Tokyo later (he was at this point, I later discover, just coming home from the night out previously)… my good friend and translator at work tomomi will also be meeting us later.
Ive gone for the ‘wear heavy shoes the day before a race so you feel the benefit of your running shoes on the day’ tactic, so I have my hiking boots on, and have a rather large and bloomin heavy backpack on. I have to go to the Tokyo Dome (Tokyo’s indoor baseball arena) to register. Up until this point, I have had no contact with anything to do with the race, I got an email saying I was accepted, and had trained all alone, and was quite scared of it all, however, its was such a thrill to be at the Tokyo dome, it was full of like minded idiots, loads of stalls trying to sell you stuff, I registered and got my marathon t shirt. I was very excited at this point and for the first time I actually though that ‘hey, this may not be a bad idea after all’. I had a phone call a friend as I was registering to wish me luck, and I was really really looking forward to it. I was no longer alone in this thing. This was a good feeling. After registration they had this huge Japanese flag where all the runners could sign their name and write something poetic in marker pen. I didn’t have a pen but in my best Japanese I asked a guy if I could borrow his, so he lent it to me…and I just stood there, I hadn’t actually thought about what to write and this guy was obviously itching to leave…so calling on inspiration from Yeats, Shakespeare et al, I racked my brains but all I could must was ‘Glen woz here’…(including 'comedy' spelling)...jesus…(in hindsight I may claim it to be a post modern ironic statement…but seriously, that’s all I could think of under such pressure), oh yeah, everyone else’s was in black pen, but of course, id written in bright red thick marker pen…hmmmm
Spent Saturday afternoon doing a bit of sightseeing, met up with Gareth and wandered around Tokyo for a bit. I was actually pretty knackered by this point and hadn’t really wanted to do this much walking, my feet were also aching. So we went for dinner. Now, experienced marathon runners do what is known as ‘carbo-loading’ the night before a race, i.e. stuff as much carbohydrates into your body as you can imagine…I had the biggest bowl of ramen soup (noodle soup) with as many dumplings as I could muster…I felt sick.
Gareth had wanted to get the authentic Japanese experience of staying in a capsule ‘hotel’, which is a great idea, designed for drunken business men who can get themselves home, its basically a coffin shaped and sized (well, a bit bigger) hole in the wall with a door, its basically 8 feet long by 4 feet wide morgue-esque type thing…problem was trying to find one, we traped around for a while trying to find one, and eventually did after about an hour in the pouring rain…of course, it was slap bang right in the middle of the red light district of Tokyo…interesting to say the least, my hotel was close by (id gone for comfort in a proper hotel) unfortunately I got lost and wandered around trying to fend off touts trying to get me to frequent their establishments…by this point I was wet, tired and cold and not a particularly happy bunny…in hindsight, an Englishman alone trudging through the seedier parts of the red light district did look a little suspect, but funnily enough in my Japanese language class we hadn’t got to the chapter where you learn to say ‘sorry, no I don’t want a lap dance or massage, I just want to go to my hotel, in the warmth and have a nice hot bath and early night’…note to self, must have a word with my sensei about that…
In the absence of having a book with me in Tokyo, I bought a copy of GQ magazine to read in bed, on the inside cover was an advert for Nike, with a picture of Lance Armstrong running, along side the photo ran a quote from the great man, permit me to repeat it...
"Me and running don't always see eye to eye, Some days it hurts more than others. But it doesn't mean I don't do it. I deal with it and I keep running because not everything that is good for you always feels good for you."
With that I went to sleep.
After a decent night sleep where I only woke up twice in a blind panic that the 3 alarms id set were set correctly. I looked outside and it was quite frankly….horrible. Saturday had been a nice day, Tokyo is generally quite warm as it gets its winter weather from the south, but outside it was black and chucking it down with rain. Bugger.
Met with Gareth in the pouring rain and got a taxi to the start of the marathon. Now, a well documented cultural stereotype of the Japanese is that they are excessively organised and precise, well, that is totally true. They had cordoned a huge area off around the start area, all plans to ditch gear with Gareth had gone away, so we shook hands and I left for the main area. It was starting from the main govt building (and for film buffs, right outside the Park Hyatt hotel made famous in the great Bill Murray film ‘Lost in Translation’) (a must see).
Now, when it comes to things like this, im a bit of a flapper, I flap (worry/panic) I was in the middle of total bedlam and chaos in the pouring rain, loud hailers were giving out all sorts of instructions (in Japanese) and I was panicking that id be late, or miss something important, but I didn’t want to get my outer clothes off too soon as it was freezing cold. Eventually I took off my tracksuit bottoms, thermal trousers and the rest of my 19 layers of clothes. They sent all of the runners a huge info pack which included pages and pages of instructions of what dto do at the start…I was sure id forgotten something…one thing I did remember was that you had to be on the start line 40 mins before the start of the race ‘otherwise you will be disqualified’…so in the pouring freezing rain and wind I took up my place (in my exact designated section of course) and stood like a lemming trapped in the headlights (mixed analogies i know, but it summed up my feelings). I had at least brought an umbrella, and when the marshal told me in Japanese that I wasn’t allowed to take my umbrella to the start line I did something bad…I babbled something very quickly in English saying I didn’t understand him and slowly edged myself away and hid amongst other runners (in hindsight, hiding when you’re not Japanese, when you’re 6”3’ tall AND have an umbrella sticking another 3 feet in the air wasn’t that bright, but it worked (I learned the babbling trick from my friend Jon who always does it whenever anyone asks to see his lift pass when he goes snowboarding…just walk and babble loudly in English and shuffle slowly away, walk and babble, walk and babble…and before you know it, your on the lift and away…walk and babble…remember that when in a foreign country)
The 40 mins we stood there were truly truly horrible, it was 4 degrees Celsius, absolutely pouring with rain and the wind was so biting…was not a very happy boy at this time, not just slightly miffed, but very very unhappy, and of course, being Japanese, they HAD to start bang on time, not a second early or a second late. Eventually we started. It took about 7 minutes to get through the start line. I had though broken the cardinal rule of racing. The cardinal rule of race running is ‘never wear, or do anything for the first time for a race’. I decided on the Saturday to take my camera along the run with me, and that plus 10 energy gels, I needed a bag. Normally I have a sleek small ‘bum bag’ type thing for long races, but this wouldn’t take my camera, so at the registration fair id bought myself a new larger bum bag, one that fitted everything in and had a water bottle and holder, was actually quite bulky and heavy with everything in it, it also bounced around a lot, so I spent the first km trying to sort it out and tighten it, in the process I ripped my number off at the bottom 2 safety pins, so I tried to sort that out…I was flapping again ,and couldn’t get comfortable at all. The 1st km was a blur of Glen flapping
KM 2-5 was spent thinking and worrying about my body, ‘why did my ankle hurt’? ‘what was that twinge’? normally I feel rough for the first part of a run and takes me a while to get ‘run-in’ but whereas normally I understand this, today it began to worry me…basically and crudely, the first 5km was spent with my head up my ass
KM5-10 there were so many people cheering us on, loads with signs, in both English and Japanese, at 5km there was a little girl with an A4 sign saying ‘enjoy yourself’…something just twigged in my head, ‘oh yeah...enjoy yourself’ I brightened up a lot then and took in a bit of the atmosphere. Now, 5 hours of running is a long time, and as I was getting neurotic about the state of my limbs, I invented a game to lighten my mood and keep my over active imagination busy. Now…in hindsight, this all may seem a little weird, and as I write this, I have no idea how it will read back, but bear with me, it saved me during the race. Well, here goes..I started talking to my limbs…my brain was the like a General in the army and all my limbs were soldiers (oh god this sounds weirder than I remember) this all started after about 7km. conversations went a little bit like this…
- Brain: Hips, how we doin?
- Left hip: bit sore sir, I’ll be fine
- Right hip: ok sir, left hip is a weakling, ill not let you down
- Left hip: oi, who are you calling a weakling?
- Brain: enough! Knees?
- Left knee: sir yes sir!
- Brain: how are you?
- Left knee: sir yes sir fine sir!
- Right knee: sir yes sir fine sir!
- Head: sir im a bit wobbly sir!
- Brain: ok soldier, have a drink and see how you feel
- Head: sir yes sir, thank you sir!
Well…honestly it helped, it even made me chuckle to myself a little. During this time I also noticed a lot of people passing me, now I know that you are not racing anyone else in a marathon, just yourself, but you kinda get a bit worried when people start flying past you. One such person was a chicken. What I can only assume was a man dressed in a chicken costume flew (ha! pun wasn’t actually intended) past me. Now…I knew I was pacing myself, but you have no idea what its like to be past by a man dressed in a chicken outfit…your ego kinda leaves you for a while…(incidentally, after telling this story to Tomomi and Gareth after the race, they said that I’d actually beaten the chicken! Jesus, has it come to this? Thrilled about beating a chicken…)
So I hit 10km, it took me 1:02 which was bang on schedule (planned for 4:30 hours) and felt great, was actually enjoying this!
KM10-20 there were huge crowds here as the road looped on itself so you could see people twice. The crowds were amazing, all day, absolute nutters, in the freezing conditions, they clapped everybody and shouted Gambatte! (good luck/keep going), honestly, I made 200,000 friends that day, cannot say enough about the people watching, and even submitted myself to a few ‘high fives’ along the way.
I did have a problem though at 12km, I needed a pee sooo bad!! Normally when I race I sweat a lot and need extra fluid, and I was so worried about being dehydrated and getting cramp that i drank at every station, plus it was so cold I wasn’t sweating…trouble is the portaloos along the way had such long queues, and there was no where to nip off course behind a tree..was getting worried…managed to find a wall near a portaloo that was ‘available’ did worry about it though as its not really common place in Japan to do that sort of thing…anyway, to excuse another pun, I was very very relieved.
Brain: hips report in
Left hip: ok sir, still a little sore, but ill be fine
Right hip: good sir
Bladder: phew, thought I was a goner sir. Thank you sir
Brain: head?
Head: ok now sir
Brain: torso?
Torso: Um...what? I didn’t know I was playing…
Brain: well you are, how are you?
Torso: quite cold actually sir, not managing to heat up at all
Left foot: Sir, can you tell right foot to stop kicking me?
Right foot: I am not kicking you!
Brain: enough! The pair of you! You sound like kids!
Nearing 20km, this was a big milestone, I needed to get here unscathed and uninjured, and I actually felt great. 99% of the crowd were obviously Japanese, and I hadn’t seen Gareth yet, when I saw a few English people who saw me and excitedly shouted ‘go on geijin!!!’ (foreigner) which gave me a massive boost actually…got goose bumps and wanted to hug them! Was very happy at this point…hey…this is fun!
KM20-25 I feel like a fraud. Im running bang on schedule, hit half way (21km) at 2:14, and felt really good. I feel like a fraud as ive made such a big deal of this in my head and people think its really hard to do a marathon..but its easy!! Im loving it! Actually felt guilty about making a big deal about it, and was contemplating my next marathon…maybe I could do the next one faster??
Saw Gareth in Ginza, well, for a split second. I must admit, id been running next to the crowds to get a lift from them, so was a bit close to Gareth to see him properly before it was too late, and before he got his camera out.
Brain: endorphins?
Endorphins: present and correct sir, flowing freely
Brain: bladder? Erm…
Brain: private bladder, we’ve been twice in the past 10km!
Bladder: I know sir, im bursting again
Brain: eyes, find somewhere for bladder
Eyes: oh hello (not sure why my eyes sounded camp, but they just did)
Brain: find somewhere for bladder…again
Eyes: eye eye sir!
Brain: not funny
Could not find anywhere for a pee…only places were the 7/11 convenience stores, but there were queues, but by this point had no choice, so I ducked in one. Now…this next part may go down in my life as one of my most bizarre encounters…here I am, running a marathon, stood in a shop waiting for the loo, there’s normal people buying food, and there’s elevator style music playing in the background, no one is running, everyone is stood still, all the pain just stopped and I was shopping! Its like the ending of Lord of then Flies if you’ve ever read it, all perspective just came flooding back, outside runners were streaming by, cant really explain how weird it felt. Unfortunately I had to wait literally 5 minutes in that queue.
Started running again but something felt wrong, didn’t feel like I did before, my legs were stiff, I didn’t feel ‘in the groove’, almost didn’t feel part of the marathon anymore. Ran a couple more km’s and got back into it, but things weren’t quite right. I was hurting. I was still 17km from the finish and was too far away to be having serious issues. I began to worry. My next goal was to make it to 30km, from then on, its almost the home straight. I shortened my gait (stride) to try and reduce the impact on my hips and knees.
The crowd were still wonderful, always clapping, always shouting, always smiling at you. Normally they were just blurry faceless faces, but every now and again you look at them, and someone would catch your eye, just you, no one else, and smile and shout just to you. Its like being winked at, it’s a private moment between two people in a crowded place, and makes you feel so so special, happened a few times and gave me goose bumps every time.
KM25-30 The first 20 km id been counting in 10’s of km’s, then it went to 5km’s, at 27km it became counting every single km, I was almost desperately reaching for 30km, my legs were beginning to go wrong and I was getting a bit worried. I was no longer looking at the crowd, I slunk to the middle of the pack, and tried to focus on running, head down, just get to 30km…
Brain: knees?
Knees in unison: hurting boss
Brain: hips?
Left hip: not good sir, can you tell right hip to stop over rotating, beginning to hurt me even more
Right hip: I am not!
Brain: quiet!
Brain: bladder?
Bladder: fine sir!
Brain: endorphins?
Endorphins:…..
Brain: come in endorphins….
Endorphins:….
Brain: Frontal lobe, have you seen endorphins??
Frontal lobe: saw him 10 mins ago sir, packed his case and left, no note or anything. AWOL
Struggled to 30km.
Had to actually think about every step now, it was so painful to run, I tried running on my heel to reduce the impact, head was a bit swimmy. Was now not fun. They say you hit ‘the wall’ at 30km, but didn’t feel worse than I did at 27km. I knew now I was going to finish, even if I had to walk I would finish it. Was a little worried about the time, 4:30 was gone, and was looking at 4:45, which wasn’t what I wanted at all, but nothing I could do about it. It was all starting to go badly wrong, i was in a lot of pain
KM30-35 The wheels were coming off now quite badly too quickly. Was hurting a lot, my left hip was very painful, both knees felt like they had no cartilage in them and was just like the bones rubbing together, I had blisters, I bent my foot and agony shot up my leg, my shoe lace was tight, but my feet had swelled up so my lace was biting into my foot, but couldn’t bend down to untie it. I stopped at 32km for the first time. I had to stretch, I pulled my left foot behind me to stretch my quads, then my right, but my foot slipped, so I pulled my leg up behind me without using my hands, and ouch! My left hamstring cramped up, was one of those where I just let go in time, it was just on the edge of completely going, I straighten my leg but my hamstring was so tight it was agony. This was really not fun anymore. It was still raining, I was cold and in so much pain. My running ‘style’ had gone, god knows what I looked like, it was more akin to a roll of the hips than running. I thought earlier that if I could get to 30km id be fine, and 30-40km was the ‘money shot’, the one that counted, like the last 2 minutes of a basket ball game (its only the last 2 mins that are actually important in basketball surely?), and I was beginning to get into trouble
KM35-40 Was a living hell. I know, it all sounds very dramatic, but that’s the only way to describe it. I was severely in danger of going over 5 hours, while one part of me thought ‘sod it’ and just finish, the devil on the other shoulder just didn’t want a 5 hour marathon time. The more I thought about it, the more I worried, and the tenser I became. I wanted to stop. There was no where to stop, there were crowds everywhere, there was literally no where to sit down on kerb and go to pieces quietly. I actually wanted to just lie down in the street and sleep. Again, as dramatic as it sounds, every step was agony, it was like the balls of my hip joint rubbing directly on the cuff of my hip, my knees were just bones banging together, I was stooping forward, thinking that gravity will pull me forwards and my legs will simply just have to catch up. I felt physically sick from all of the sugary energy gels and drinks id had. A few times I tried to psyche myself out by telling myself to not feel so bloody sorry for myself and get a grip and just run properly…but there was nothing left. I was really getting concerned about the 5 hour mark, I was doing mental calculations about how long it was taking per km. each km was now half km’s, it was taking me about a minute to do 100metres, it was just like running through syrup, my mind wanted it, but my body was gone.
I always thought that the race was 40km, I kept telling myself to get to 40km and the last 2km would take care of themselves. Not to be. I hit 40km and still didn’t know if id break 5 hours. My only thought was that if I just kept running, I was doing about 9 minute km’s and that should just do it. We hit a couple of inclines, which turned out to be just small bridges, you may even think they were flat to drive over, but they were like Everest to me. Id stopped using my heart rate monitor at 30km, it was no use, I would go as fast as my legs would go, simple as that. When I hit 40km, I had worked it out that I would just do it under 5 hours, I thought, great, 2 km’s x 9 mins, just about do it, then 220 metres down the road, there was a marker saying ‘only 2km’s to go. My heart sank, of course, the race is 42.22kms long. And at this rate it would take me 2 mins to do those last 200 metres! I got to 41 km, and there was another small slope/bridge, I was ‘running’ but I looked to my side and there was a guy walking, and he was doing exactly the same speed as me, seriously…so I tried to walk but fell behind, it was only my second walk of the whole race and lasted about 20 seconds. I worked it out now that I was going to break 5 hours. Such a relief, just a few mins left, I got off the bridge and turned down the penultimate stretch, there was a brass band playing and I almost managed a smile. Id given up imaginary conversations with my limbs a long time ago, I just didn’t have the sense of humour left in me, it just wasn’t funny anymore. I turned the last corner and saw the finish, the clock was coming up to 5 hours (but it had taken me 7 mins to cross the line so I was on for less than that) I tried a little sprint to the finish. I don’t actually member that last 200 yards, it was a bit of a blur, I tried to beat the clock to 5 hours and did it by a second I think…I threw up my arms at the line as if id won the whole thing, but I guess to me I had. I was exhausted, my body had gone completely. Now, I cry on average about once every 10 years, seriously, it has been years and years since I last cried, but standing there after the finish line, not being able to walk another step, it all got to me, what doing this meant to me, the absolute pain, the sheer mental exhaustion, the emotion of everything that I had just put myself through, I just stood there and cried, I couldn’t move, just stood there crying… it was all just too much for me. I had nothing at all left inside of me, emotionally or physically.
I picked up my medal, (the smallest medal in the world!) and rainproof poncho, (the ugliest thing in the world) picked up my gear that had been transported there and got changed. Managed to find tomomi and Gareth and went for some food of which I ate about one mouthful.
On the bullet train home I had a well earned beer and fell asleep. Gambatte indeed.
Today is the day after and I can hardly walk, it took me 5 minutes to get out of bed and had to get a lift to work as I cant drive at all. Its not really sunk in yet, im in too much pain to think of it happily at the moment. It was a wonderful experience, and would love to say that I enjoyed all of it…well, I loved the first 25km. the people there were just amazing though, and that memory will live much longer than the painful ones. 30,000 people took part, there were 10,000 marshals and a few hundred thousand people stood there in the freezing cold rain shouting ‘Gambatte’! at total strangers for 5 hours. Incidentally, the Kenyan who was leading for a large part of the race pulled out as it was too cold….he should try training in niigata more often!
Not wishing to sound like a Gwyneth Paltrow Oscar acceptance speech, but many many thanks to my good friends Gareth and tomomi for braving the cold and chasing around Tokyo on the subway to try and catch me for a 5 second cheer…many many thanks. Thanks all to all those who sponsored me, your hard earned money will be well used. Many many thanks to those who sent me good luck messages from around the globe, and thanks to those in niigata for saying nice things and being incredibly encouraging…including my mate Pam for sending a very inspirational text message on the Saturday…strange though…I never did see all of the girls from niigata topless at the finish line….were you lying????!!
Thanks also to my mum, for training advice and inspiration. X
ps do i get the club record for the tokyo marathon as well now??
oh, final time, 4 hours, 53 mins, 6 seconds
Now… go back to work or whatever you should be doing...
Gambatte!
Glen 20th February 2007
