Tokyo Marathon Test Run

Dec. 29, 2018

On Day 2 of my winter break 2018 I test-ran part of the new Tokyo Marathon course. We covered a staggering 34.8 K (or perhaps more according to a GPS watch belonging to one of my accompanying runner friends) thanks to fun chats throughout the run as well as special meals I took with runner friends who accompanied me for the event.

We left Raffine Running Style Kanda at 9:35 a.m. Our first destination was the Naruto Taiyaki Shop in Asakusa Bashi. It's 4.8 K from the run base. We expected that a 40 to 50 minute run would get us there. 

Passage through the course was smooth as cream as pedestrians were few at early time of the day. We reached the taiyaki shop around a quarter past 10. We fueled ourselves with a taiyaki with each one's favorite kind of sweet stuffing in it, except that Mr. H had two, instead of one! His voracious appetite came across to me as his exceptionally high motivation to complete the run.

Once our stomachs were filled, we maintained a steady pace along Kiyosubashi Dori toward Asakusa. In the official race Asakusa is the 15 K mark. In today's run it's 6.5 K from the run base. 

Kiyosubashi Dori is lined with many interesting shops, and we never got bored streaming down the straight road northbound. At one time we ran past toy maker the Bandai Corporation's office building outside of which there are a bunch of anime character figures. Some enjoyed photo-shooting. One had a memorial photo taken of him and anime hero the Ultra Man

In no time the iconic giant red 'chochin' lantern of the Sensoji Temple came in sight, and we found ourselves in a crowd of visitors from every corner of Japan as well as the world. A magnificent view of the famous Sky Tree electromagnetic tower could be enjoyed when we turned the corner in front of the front gate to the temple. Suddenly a memory flashed back of the day when I ran the Tokyo Marathon myself both in 2011 and 2012, and also of how my heart lifted at the sight of it. Back then Asakusa was the 28 K mark, and my legs were already significantly pained due to lack of proper training. But cheering from the sidewalk pushed me forward. 

Leaving Asakusa behind we were now going back where we came from down Kiyosubashi Dori, except that this time we took a left into Kuramaebashi Dori to cross the Sumida River to hit Kiyosumi Dori to go along it till we reached the official halfway point in the race in Monzennakacho. Unitl we got there, we crossed a number of bridges which gave a certain amount of undulation to what would be the otherwise rather flat new course. We made a brief stop at the Tomioka Hachimangu Shrine and did the sacred ritual cleansing our hands and mouth before approaching the shrine, bowing twice in front of it, clapping our hands twice, and then bowing once again. (See the picture above.) 

With warm rays of the sun on our back, we head back toward Kuramaebashi Dori, across it, and then back to Kiyosubashi Dori. Some of us started complaining they were hungry. It was only natural. We hadn't had anything to sea since we had a taiyaki around 10. It was already past noon. We were scheduled to have lunch at Yoshinoya's Beef Bowl Restaurant in Ginza Sanchome, but there were still several kilometers to cover before we reached there. One of us, Yuko, was so hungry that when she saw a large sign of a brokerage firm in red and yellow, she thought it was a sign of a yakitori restaurant whose sign is also red and yellow. We all laughed when she said that. But most of us were starting to experience a minor degree of hunger-induced illusion/hallucination, and we were all desperate to reach the restaurant before we completely ran out of gas.

Fortunately, three hours and twenty-one minutes after we left Raffine Running Style Kanda, we reached Yoshinoya's Beef Bowl Restaurant in Ginza Sanchome at 0:56 p.m. We ate their famous beef bowl like wolves that hadn't had a bite to eat for weeks.

At this point, three of us were expected to leave the pack and retire. But with their body's batteries fully charged, all of us were willing to go on farther.

There were 12 more kilometers to go, and our next destination was the Shinagawa turning point 6 kilometers from Ginza. For two of us anything longer than what we had already run was well beyond their usual training distances, and there was a significant amount of challenge in the attempt. I told them they were free to opt out when they were too tired to go on as there were train stations along the route at a fairly regular interval of about 1.5 kilometer. They took it as a psychological  blanket, and agreed to come along.

About an hour and a half after we left the restaurant in Ginza, we reached JR Shinagawa Station, where two of us felt they'd run enough for the day, and took a train back to Kanda. Three of us remained. We took a pee break and discussed how to reset our motivation to run the remaining 6 K. We agreed to have a cup of coffee from a nearby convenience store. We knew caffeine was dehydrating and not good for running, but it was getting colder and colder as the sun slowly got lower, we definitely needed something nice and warm to drink. 

A cup of coffee made us feel like new runners. We picked up the pace along Hibiya Dori toward the finish line. Around the official 38 K mark we came to the Shibakoen Park, where a magnificent view of the Tokyo Tower soared up into the beautiful winter sky. We had some memorial photos taken, talking on and on about how the view could lift the spirit of runners and allow them to fight their way through building fatigue and relentless pain.  

When we finally left Hibiya Dori behind and took two turns into a narrow shopping street leading to Gyoko Dori where the finish line was, it was almost 3:40 p.m. This final stretch is cobbled as opposed to asphalt-paved. It's lined with stylish shops of all kinds. Pedestrians walked on both sidewalks. They were fashionably dressed, enjoying their year-end shopping. Vehicle traffic was not allowed for the day, so we kept the street all to ourselves. Somewhere in our minds we all must have pictured ourselves running toward the imminent finish line. 

At 3:45 p.m. we reached our goal, celebrating our feat with a high five. The sound of hands clapped echoed in the street...

That evening I had my best party of Year 2018 with those four runner friends of mine who helped me achieve my year-end athletic goal.