The 19th Hadano Tanzawa Minase-Gawa Half Marathon took place on Sunday, December 3 in the picturesque quiet town of Hadano, Kanagawa Prefecture. I ran it in bare feet and crossed the finish line an hour 41 minutes and 4 seconds after the gun went off with a net time of 1:40:23. I'm happy with the result as it far exceeds my original expectations. Below is a brief report of how I ran the race.
The race was scheduled to be officially underway at 8:45 a.m. I stayed at a hotel in the nearby city of Honatsugi on the previous night and gave myself a good night's sleep.
On the race day, I woke up at 6:00 a.m., did my usual stretching, and had breakfast offered at the hotel.
I took a 7:25 train. A 17-minute ride took me to Hadano where the race took place. There was a free shuttle bus available from the station to the race venue. I got there 30 minutes before the race. I joined my runner friend and quickly got changed. I heard an announcement telling runners to stand by at their corral. Mine was Corral D.
About 5 minutes after I stood by, the gun went off, and the race was officially underway. There was brief congestion initially but in less than a minute I settled into my pace.
There is a cut-off time of 30 minutes at 5K in the race. If you run 1K in slower than 6 minutes, you are out. It's an easy pace for experienced runners but not too easy for beginners. Everyone tries hard so as not to be cut off at this early stage of the race.
There is a slight undulation in the first 5K, but compared to the rest of the course it is fairly flat. But then comes the beginning of a real test of endurance once you are past the 5K mark.
Once you go past the water station at 5K, you take a right turn and go north toward the mountain range. It slowly starts climbing, initially through a commercially lively area. But once you are past that commercial area, a wide view opens up in front of you, and the landscape changes almost instantly. Now you are surrounded by empty rice paddies and modern two-storied houses that were typically seen in the commercial area are mostly replaced with old houses with large yards. You are in the hilly section of the course.
The hilly section lasts between 8K and 15.5K. There is a long downhill around 13K and a brief downward incline at 15K but other than that, it basically continues to go up. It's a long and hard journey.
It is in this most challenging section, though, that if you are a well-trained citizen runner, you can reel in those who went too fast too early. Since I mostly trained on hilly courses, I enjoyed the benefit of all the effort I put into the prep for this race. The only thing that I wasn't prepared enough for was the unexpectedly ill-maintained surface of many parts of the road in this section. They were insanely rough and often edgy and the damage on my soles sapped the energy out of me.
But when the iconic landmark of The Suspension Bridge of Wind came into view, the excruciating pain from withstanding the edgy road surface and the lactic acids building in the leg muscles for a moment seemed to be forgotten.
As I ran across the bridge, I looked across the vast mountain range on the west and then down at the city below. Now the real game begins!
The suspension bridge is at the 15.5K mark. From this point on, it's all downhill. This is the most enjoyable section of the race if you are well-trained and appropriately paced up to this point. I was ready to hammer down the hill!
But then I faced something totally unexpected. Though I knew that the race had been re-routed some years ago, and the course briefly went through a park instead of going on a public road, I was not prepared for the surprisingly edgy surface of the walking path through the park. It was ridiculously spiky and I just couldn't inject the pace where I most wanted to run fast! At times I had to step off the walking path onto the grass right next to it. When the park section finally ended and I found myself back on the public road, I was so relieved that I almost cried with joy.
Once on the public road, my surge was on another level. The road was well-paved. It's downhill. I rolled on like a thunderball. There was a brief side-tracking off the public road into a narrow trail along the river that was designed to avoid blocking the city traffic, but the surface wasn't as bad as that of the walking path in the park. And in less than a few hundred meters I was back on the public road again.
The last few kilometers are all a mental game. I visualized my regular training course in my mind and imagined I was running it. I said to myself, "You don't know how many times you've run this course before. It will go just like it did so many times before."
Finally, the long downhill ended, and I took two right turns into a straight road leading to the finish area. A yellow arch is in sight. But there is one lap of the track before going under that arch. When I got my bare feet on that track, I grimaced in pain. The surface of the track was as edgy as that of the walking path in the park after the 15.5K mark! I was like, "Not now! Now this particular time and place of the race! Please!" But there was no choice. There was no escape. I kept on running. Now I am on the opposite side across the track from the finish arch. Two hundred fifty meters more to go. The pain became almost unbearable. There was a grassy area next to the track. I ran on it. But It ended when I turned around the last corner. The arch is in sight. Two hundred meters more to go. I heard footsteps from behind. Someone is trying to overtake me. I don't want to let it happen. I want to surge. But it's so painful. The footsteps sound nearer. Am I slowing down? Or is the running behind me picking up the pace. Will I be overtaken? No, I won't let it happen! Oh, suddenly the surface became only slightly less spiky! Oh, the pain is now manageable. I can surge. I can inject pace. I am running faster. Faster! And faster into the arch! Across the finish line! The race is over. The mission is accomplished. My soles hurt. But I can forget about it now. The joy far exceeds the pain. Allow me to soak myself fully in the positive feeling. Oh, God. I did it. Shiiiiit, it hurts! But thank God, I didn't give it up. And I'm so glad I didn't.
Sometime after I crossed the finish line, my runner friend also successfully completed the challenging race, and together we enjoyed having a bowl of pork soup that was offered to all finishers.
After the race, I found some blood blisters on both of my soles. They were painful at first. But after squeezing the blood out of them, they became less painful.
About 40 hours have passed since the race was over. The blisters are no longer so painful. I believe I can go to work with no problem tomorrow morning. I will probably give myself a good rest on Tuesday. I may go for a recovery walk at night. But I won't restart my serious running training until next week. I am afraid I am slightly depleted. I want to build strength. I will probably increase the volume of leg muscle training to maintain the strength that I need to carry on the fairly challenging training regimen that I want to execute in December and January.
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