On March 24, 2019 Sakura Asahi Kenko Marathon 2019 took place in the picturesque sub-urban city of Sakura, Chiba Prefecture. I joined the race in bare feet, and completed the race in 4:23:04 (gross)/4:22:14 (net).
The time is less than average. And the attempt turned out to be one of the most grueling athletic adventures that I've ever had a go at. When a great majority of people do not understand the point of running a marathon, because running is not the best way to travel from Point A to Point B, not to mention the fact that most people usually have a purpose when they travel, running such a long distance alone without any practical purpose seems crazy enough to most non-marathoners, why "barefoot"? What's the point of not wearing shoes when there are a perfect pair of high spec running shoes available for around $200 that have proven to shed a significant amount of time off your PR? Well, there are reasons of course. From the next paragraph on, I would like to explain to the readers my reason for running, and how I ran the race to achieve my personal goal.
<Renewing PR Isn't My Ultimate Goal>
Going after PR isn't my ultimate athletic goal. My main goal is to become more endurable. I want to become a stronger version of myself. Strength has different facets. One of them is endurance. There are other facets too. Agility, power, explosiveness. These are all part of the picture. But as far as marathon is concerned, the main focus is endurance.
Now for most marathoners long-distance endurance means completing a race, and also if possible running it at the pace that they hope for. If someone ran a marathon, but didn't complete it, but when she or he tried it again, they completed it. They can feel they have become more endurable. Also, if someone ran it, but didn't finish under four hours. But next time she or he tried they ran a sub-4 marathon. Again, they will feel they have become more endurable, because the record proves they kept a more challenging pace to hammer out that time.
The criteria above are both totally valid ones. I use them as yardsticks whereby I measure my growth in endurance.
However, an event changed me, and it made me want to add one more criterion. It happened on a day in April, 2016.
<A Young Man Who Changed My Outlook on Marathon>
A young man changed my outlook on marathon. On April 17, 2016 I was in Kasumigaura, aiming to run a sub-4 marathon at Kasumigaura Marathon 2016. The result was disastrous. My legs got cramped near the 32 K mark, and from that point on everything crumbled. When I was limping near the finish line, I came across a young man who had finished the race and stood relaxed looking up at the sky. He was barefooted. I walked up to him and said, "Did you ran in bare feet?" "Yes, I did," he answered. "Did you do that before?" I asked. "Yep," he said like it's no sweat. I was curious. I went on to ask, "How long did it take you to run your first barefoot marathon?" He said, "Two years." "Two years, you say," I asked. "Two year," he repeated.
After that he and I talked awhile. And then I thanked him for the information, and certainly for inspiring me to try the feat someday.
My journey started the following day. I started my research on barefoot running, and took many small steps from running in minimalist shoes first, slowly running short distances in bare feet and then gradually faster, and eventually to running much longer distances at much faster paces.
Two years and six months later, I completed my first full marathon without shoes at Aqua Line Marathon 2018.
But I wasn't satisfied, because I protected my soles with kinetic tape because I was afraid of being disqualified due to injury. I thought it cheating.
I continued my effort to make my soles tougher.
And then this past January in Tateyama Wakashio Marathon 2019 I ran my first sub-4 full marathon completely in bare feet! No shoes, no kinetic tape even whatsoever. It was a major confidence booster. My mind was set to run the remaining two marathons in bare feet, and if possible to finish both of them under 4 hours!
<The Day of the Race>
I woke up at 6 and had a simple Japanese breakfast consisting of steamed brown rice, beaten raw egg, and fermented soy beans. I had two oranges to get enough potassium.
I took the 6:59 train to get to Keisei Sakura Station at 7:11. A five-minute ride on a shuttle bus took me to the venue. I picked up a Size S event T-shirt from a volunteer woman and headed to the gym of Uchigo Elementary School. It's offered to runners for them to get changed. I walked across the stadium to get there. The sun light reflected on the bright brown and green of the all-weather track. Organizing staffs were doing last-minute prep here and there. Some runners were taking photos in the stadium.
When I reached the gym, there was still plenty of time before the race. I lay down and relaxed. The cold of the wooden floor felt good on my back.
I was originally scheduled to meet my runner friend Hashimoto san, but he texted me, saying he'd be late, so I just waited for the start alone.
I mentally traced the course with my eyes closed. A great majority of the course has very rough surface. The key to success is running it without damaging my sole.
Twenty minutes before start, I got changed to my tiger one-piece costume.
Fifteen minutes to go, I left the gym, made a quick stop at a Porta Potty, and went to my corral.
A few senior runners stroke up a conversation with me when they found out that I wasn't wearing shoes. One said, "I'd admire you if you ran a sub-4 barefoot marathon." I said, "That's exactly what I'm here for."
At 9:30 a.m. the gun went off. The race was officially under way. All the runners steamed out of the stadium, cheered on by spectators on both sides of the street.
Before reaching the 5 K mark near Keisei Ohzakura Station, runners go over a fairly large hill. Working too hard at this stage is out of question of course. You just cruise on. Because of the undulation, your heart rates are inevitably elevated higher than usual. All you need is jogging. By the time you leave the hill behind, and reach Keisei Sakura Station, you have done just optimal warm-up exercise.
Shortly before the 5 K mark, two friends of mine from my hometown awaited me. We waved at each other. I thanked them for being there to cheer me on. Soon they were behind me.
Near the 6 K mark the course took a left into a narrow road though rice paddies. The road condition suddenly deteriorated. I had no choice but slow down to reduce damage to the sole. Many runners overtook me. Some asked me if I was OK as they went past me. My answer was always, "Not OK, but I'm hanging there."
Around 7 K mark the narrow road though rice paddies was over, and I was back on a wide road with better road condition. I felt as if I had just taken off shoes with thumbtacks in them. But it only lasted less than a kilometer, and in no time I found myself back on a narrower, and rougher road. And a more or less similar condition lasted until the 17 K mark where runners were back on a wider and better-paved road.
By the time I reached the 17 K mark, both of my soles had been significantly damaged, and I was worried about the road ahead. While I was cruising along the wide and smooth road between the 17 and 19.5 K, I wasn't able to realize how badly sore they had gotten, but when I finally reached the newly added part of the course just before the 20 K mark, I had to come to a complete halt the moment I set my first foot on it. An agonizing pain shot through my spine and I almost choked. I couldn't believe it. Suddenly I wasn't able to move an inch. Both of my soles had gotten hypersensitive due to the incessant beatings from countless landing that they couldn't take even the tiniest of protrusions on the road.
I tip-toed the entire new part which roughly lasted for one kilometer.
I was overtaken by God knows how many runners from behind. I wanted to cry both because of the physical pain I had to endure, and miserable feeling I had to deal with.
When the newly added part was finally over, I almost cried again, this time from a relief that the worst was over.
But the worst wasn't exactly over. The following section of the course was no less rough than the one that just ended. And it lasted for another 5 K or so.
I did my best to carefully run on a less rough part of the road, but that took extra energy away from me, and I felt more tired than I should be.
Near the 26.5 K mark my local friends were supposed to be waiting for my arrival. I had asked one of them to have peeled orange ready. Last year I got sick after the 28 K mark presumably due to a lack of potassium. Once you run out of that particular mineral, you feel thirsty, and your legs become prone to getting a cramp. And once you get into this state, no matter how much water you drink, you continue to feel thirsty, and after a while start feeling sick even. I didn't want the same to happen this year.
When I reached the water station before the 26.5 K mark, I could see all four of my local friends excitedly waving their hands at me beyond a series of long tables on which cups of water and sports drink were placed for runners.
The leader of the cheering team, Ui san, handed me a bag full of peeled orange sections. I grabbed a few pieces and quenched my thirst. Another friend, Yukie chan, took a few photos of me. At this point, I had given up all hope of running a sub-4 marathon, so wasting time didn't bother me at all. A guy from the city's public relation division came to me and asked to take a couple of pictures of me, so I gladly complied. From behind I heard voices of small kids approaching. I turned around to find two young boys looking at me with excitement. They liked my caveman's costume, and wanted to have a picture taken with me. Oh my, what is it with kids and a caveman? Together we had a photo or two taken, and they were as happy as a clam.
I exchanged a few words with the other two friends, Nemocchan, and Kiuchi, and thanked them both for walking all the way from Keisei Usui Station just for a brief moment of cheering. What would I do without them...
Past their cheering spot, there was a brief section that had smooth surface. I accelerated a bit. But then soon the course gave way to a cycling road that is less manicured and much narrower.
The pain in the sole was steadily increasing, and while I was running the second part of the cycling course past the windmill at the 30 K mark, the pain in the sole finally became unbearable, and I decided to run on the bank between the road and the pond. It was bushy and not entirely painless. But it was certainly softer than the ill-maintained asphalt road. But every now and then I accidentally stepped on cutting edges of grass that were dry and hard, my knees almost buckled with unexpected sharp pain.
The increasing pain dramatically slowed me down, and as I was running the bank between the course and rice paddies, I wasn't totally sure why I was still continuing the race. I did't even know if it should be called a race, or some sort of entertaining event for people to see, because there WERE cheerers who laughed at me and my plight. I tried to laugh with them at my own insanely stupid situation, and but the best facial expression I could make was a hideous mixture of self-pity of grimace.
When I finally reached the 35 K point, the ill-maintained country asphalt road was replaced with a newly paved open road which I had test-run two days before. The pain lessened, but it didn't go entirely.
An elderly runner talked to me while on the road. He was once a fast runner, but he's still enjoying the fruit of the hard training in his younger days. He showed some genuine interest in my barefoot effort, and encouraged me to complete it no matter what. I felt like I finally found the reason to go on. To complete the race no matter how.
Near the 39 K mark, the newly paved section briefly gave way to a narrow road usually only used by local farmers. Though it was brief, it presented the biggest challenge to me in the entire race. The challenge came in three ways:
First, my soles were already irrecoverably hypersensitive.
Second, the road condition suddenly deteriorated, compared with that part which had just gone by.
Finally, the bank between the road and rice paddies next to it was no less rough than the road itself, so there was no way out.
I had to stop and figure out how to get over to the other side of this brief road. I stepped on the bank, and gasped with pain. It was impossible to run on it. The bush had been cut a while before, and the cutting edge was as sharp as a knife.
I tip-toed back on the road and walked. But even walking was as painful as if walking on thumbtacks. There were only three more kilometers ahead. I couldn't give up here. I looked side way toward the rice paddies down the bank. The mud that filled the paddies looked nice and soft. A second later I was "in" one of the rice paddies and walking barefoot through the mud!
My feet were engulfed with the warmth of nature. Pulling each leg out of the mud every time I took a step forward cost me extra energy and made me exhausted to the core, but it was better than the humiliation of failing in the test of endurance.
When I finally get across to the other end of the section and into the winding road that led to the stadium, I was this time 100% sure that the worst was over.
But the remaining 3 kilometers continued to be a painful journey. This section is run twice by the runner, first between 11 and 12 K, and then again between 39 and 41 K. What didn't feel painful at all still in the early stage of the race now feels ten times as agonizing! No pace increase was possible. All I could do was slither like a snail.
Then just before the 41 K mark a man shouted my name near the corner turning into a long stretch leading to Keisei Sakura Station. It was Kato sensei, a friend from junior and senior high school days. He joined the event as a volunteer worker. He was at the 12 K mark when I was still kicking and alive in the first half of the race. He's done with his share of work, and now joined the crowd to cheer on the returning runners. I suddenly felt renewed motivation building from within. I thanked him for his encouragement, and changed the gear and pressed on.
Suddenly all the pain that had plagued me up to that point seemed to lesson. I felt like a new man and overtook struggling runners. Faster runners were on their way home accompanied with their supporters. Every now and then they congratulated me and the runners around me on almost reaching the finish line. I responded with "Thanks".
Then finally the notorious heart break hill showed up ahead of me. I rocked it out because it was just that my soles were pained but I was still full of legs, and my cardio was still strong. Soon after I reached the top of the hill, there was a short section connecting to the stadium, and once inside the course gave way to the spongy all-weather track! I was ecstatic! I waited for this moment. No more painful ill-maintained country road. No more bank. And no more muddy rice paddy! I put on a spurt and surged, like world best record holder Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya. Or perhaps more aptly like late Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia who destroyed the field in the Rome Olympics Men's Marathon barefooted.
The finish arch came nearer and nearer with each step. A tremendous roar of cheering voices echoed in the stadium like a thunder. The official timer flashed in my side glance. The time sucked! But who the f**k cares? Because I did it. I finally completed my 3rd barefoot full marathon thanks to the support by all the aid workers and local friends, and let's not forget the runners who encouraged me to complete the race when they saw me during the race when they themselves had a lot to take care of. Thank you, everyone. No word is big enough to express how thankful I truly feel to you for all your support.
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