Ohme 30 K Road Race

Two days have passed since I completed my weekend 40+ K running project. I feel fully recovered. The slight knee pain in both of my knees seems gone. My body feels lighter when I run up stairs. Soreness in the neck and shoulders is completely absent. I feel ready to finalize my preparation for the 50^th Ohme 30 K Road Race that takes place this coming Sunday in Ohme City in western Tokyo.

I covered marathon distance in training twice in the last 17 days. So I feel least worried in terms of my stamina. My only concern is fatigue resistance when running at a fast pace. Though it’s bad news for me, there isn’t much to do with it at this stage of training. All I can do is maintain my condition. For that purpose, there are only a couple of exercises left to the runner. Core training is one. It helps tone your body balance required while running without fatiguing your legs too much. Another is short speed training such as 3 K build-up. You begin to run at a certain pace, and progressively raise your pace by 10 seconds or so per K. For example, if you run the first 1 K at 4:50/K, your next lap should be 4:40, and the last 4:30. This is to stimulate your cardio-vascular system by pre-conditioning it to cope with the change of pace that inevitably takes place at the race.

What’s most important in the last three days before the race is having good food and storing up enough energy in your body by having good rest. With diet, there isn’t much to worry about. If you eat clean most of the time, you can just stick with it. And you can eat just a little bit more of carb if any because carb is a main source of energy in long distance running. Incidentally, though rest is vitally important, too much relaxation is not too good. Some running experts recommend a short fast run on the day before the race just to stimulate your leg muscles and cardio. It will be a 3 to 5 K session at your 10 K pace. In my case it’s 4:30/K. As far as I’m concerned, I will probably do a 3 K fast run at 4:30/K pace on Friday night since I stay at a hotel in Hachioji on the night before the race, and exercising in an unfamiliar town doesn’t seem like a good idea.

My training schedule before the race is as follows:

<Tue> 3.9 K Build Up

<Wed> Core Training & Stretching

<Thurs>Stretching & Rest

<Fri> 3 K Pace Run at 4:30/K

<Sat> Stretching & Rest

45 K Run Between Office and Home

On Feb. 13, Saturday, 2016 I ran home from my office, which is over 40 K away.
I left my office building at exactly 6:00 P.M.
I ran up a steep hill behind the building at a comfortable pace and ran along a side of the Diet building to reach the moat around the Imperial Palace.
Running awhile along the moat the bright neon lights from the Sukiyabashi area came in sight.
After passing several intersections I found myself running among crowds of people
in the most fashionable area in Tokyo--Ginza.
The streets were packed with couples enjoying a happy time together
on Valentine's Day.
Once off Chuo Street and into a narrower street leading to Hamacho,
the number of pedestrians gradually became smaller and smaller.
In no time I hit the Sumida river, and after taking a few turns,
I was on Route 14 that connects Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture.
With the Sobu Line on my left I kept straight along the national road.
Running along Route 14 was nice and pleasant.
At every two kilometers or so I saw a lively shopping district that had developed around a station.
Though I didn't take any break just the prospect of a shopping area appearing every now and then gave me a sense of security.
Around the 20 K mark after departure I had to make a choice.
Route 14 split into three ways.
One was a toll toad and you couldn't take it unless you were driving.
Another was the regular extension of Route 14.
But this was kind of a detour into Chiba.
The last choice went all the way to the entrance to the toll road,
and took a right to go through a minor road to cross a river to get into Chiba.
I had never taken that route, but since it appeared to the shortest way,
I decided to take it.
But this turned out to be a big mistake.
I was checking my route on an app called Navi Walk on my cell.
It had been a useful tool most of the time,
but that night my mind was unclear from fatigue
and I took a wrong turn and ended up running extra 5 K without realizing it
until I came home.
Meanwhile it started raining and winds got harder.
I felt lonely and miserable, running where I had never run before.
I started feeling thirsty, but a convenience store was nowhere to be seen.
I had no choice but going on.
Almost two and half hours after departure
I took my first break at Lawson's in Myouden.
I finished a bottle of Pocari Sweat quickly,
and started again to aim for Yoshinoya Beef Restaurant in Nishifunabashi
where I was planning to have dinner.
The way to the next rest point looked easy on the map,
but when I reached an intersection on a toll road,
passage looked blocked by construction work,
and I was afraid that I had to turn back the way I had come.
Luckily after roaming around for several minutes
I was able to find a temporary sidewalk to take me over to the other side of the toll road.
The restaurant was not for ahead.
But then the rain got harder, and the temperature started coming down.
I untied my windbreaker that I had wrapped around my waist, and put it on.
It made a big difference, and now I felt less cold.
An hour after my first major break in Myoden I finally reached Nishifunabashi.
I filled my stomach with a bowl of rice with sweet and salty boiled beef on top.
My app said there was 19.2 K more to go.
There was nothing unfamiliar anymore from there to home.
I had run the same route before.
But it was night, and the weather was bad.
Plus I had already run more that 20 K.
There was a world of difference between running the same distance afresh
and doing it after already running almost the same distance.
However, the remaining Ks turned out to be much much harder than I thought.
One reason was I was more tired than I thought I was.
There was a party on Thursday.
I had a little too much too drink.
Plus, I hadn't had enough sleep on Friday night.
With all these factors combined with the bad weather and late hours,
I wasn't as focused as I usually was at races.
But I didn't want to give up.
So I accepted all the unfavorable factors and decided to go slow.
With a little more than 10 K remaining,
my right knee started hurting.
The same happened in the full marathon in Tateyama earlier,
and at that time I overcame it by changing my running from,
taking wider strides and landing on the heel to allow the cushion of the sole
to absorb the landing shock instead of having my knee do the job.
But tonight it didn't work as well as it had at the race.
In no time my right knee started hurting,
and from that point on I had to stop at every 100 meters,
to bend and stretch my knees.
This significantly slowed down my pace,
and when the lights from my hometown were finally in sight
it was already over an hour later than my originally estimated arrival time.
But who cares?
I was finally going to make it.
I wanted to cry with pain, but tears never came out.
Instead I found myself laughing like a mad man,
because I was just so happy the journey was finally going to be over.
I passed some construction works fixing the road.
I almost hugged one of them with job, but of course I didn't.
I passed a few gentlemen smoking outside a ramen shop,
and imagined their smoke-filled degenerate lungs and felt an overwhelming feeling of superiority.
In no time I was standing by my scooter parked near the station.
I put on my helmet, started the engine and headed home.
Compared with dragging my legs in pain, riding the scooter was like
traveling on Monkey King's Flying Nimbus.
I literally felt like I was flying in the air!

What did I do after I got home?
Well, my eyes are getting heavy, so I would like to write about it later.

On Bed vs Futon

 I have lived more than half of my entire life choosing a bed for my sleeping equipment rather than futon, but yet I much prefer sleeping in the latter. Therefore, I demolished my bed last year which I had used for more than 40 years since childhood, and now I sleep in futon every night.

I don’t prefer sleeping in futon without reasons.

Here are but a few of them.

<Greater Freedom to Use Limited Space>

One obvious reason is that futon gives you greater freedom to use what limited space you have. For example, your bedroom is usually entirely occupied by your bed. You cannot fold it easily to put it into a nearby storage room unless your bed is a foldable one. A large bed would leave you very little space to do other things. On the other hand, use of futon allows you to use your bedroom (in this case it should be called ‘futon-room’, perhaps?) for entirely new purposes. For example, I spread my futon in the guest room of my residence. When morning comes and I put the futon in the closet, what was my bedroom during the night becomes a guest room again, ready to welcome visitors if any.

<Perfect Exercise to Start a Day>

Putting your futon back in the closet every morning is a good exercise. There are a number of items you need to fold and carry. Folding these items involves multiple joint movements. So does carrying them. Large pieces of futon are moderately heavy. Carrying them stimulates your back and thigh muscles without hurting them. By the time you have put all items away, your heart rates are slightly up, and you are fully awake, ready for the day.

<Discipline>

Daily futon folding can be a easy way to discipline yourself. One way to nurture self-discipline in your mind-body is by respecting boundaries in your daily life. By ritualistically repeating the task of futon folding after waking up before starting all the other important activity at the start of the day such as getting dressed and having breakfast, you clearly demarcate between the end of your rest phase and the beginning of the work phase. In fact, if you a top performer in your field, this seemingly tedious repetition cannot be easily neglected. This is because Mr. Harada, who is a former teacher and track team couch of Matsumushi Junior High School and now a seminar instructor, once advised his students to help their parents with house chores. According to him, the habit of doing small daily routines makes a strong mind that enables one to do things that are more difficult later. I feel the same can be said with the routine of spreading futon at night and folding it in the morning. After doing it day after day, other small home maintenance activities are also felt to be easy. And your household is generally kept nice and tidy, compared with those resided in by owners without such a daily habit.

There are countless other advantages of futon over bed. Moving is a lot easier. It can be fluffy again if you ask a pro. You can make several cushions from an old piece of futon. It is easier than a mattress to take out under the sun for drying and sanitizing.

To conclude, futon, traditional Japanese sleeping equipment, offers so many merits over beds to its user, and is highly recommendable to live a healthy and organized life. I would not say beds suck because I can certainly see their merits. Once you put a bed in a room, it’s there forever. You can throw yourself on it whenever you want to. You can sit on the edge, using it like a chair also. These are all merits of beds that I myself once enjoyed, and that I would if I had one. But nevertheless, I will probably never buy a bed for the rest of my life, and will stick to futon. I simply cannot resist all the Japanese traditional wisdom folded into it…

Interval Training: Cruise Ks 10 × 1K

With eleven days remaining before the 50th Ohme 30 K Road Race

I did interval training called cruise Ks. It is essentially a sustained effort of running 10 K broken into smaller chunks consisting of 10 sets of 1 K with a short recovery period between repetitions. 

The primary merits of the training are threefold.

One is that it is a good way to get in some lactate threshold work.

You can increase the intensity of the workout without making it to hard to continue.

Another is that you can keep your motivation more easily than when you run the same distance without a rest.

In today's workout I kept my half-marathon pace of 4:50/K.

It's not easy to keep that pace continuously.

But in cruise Ks a short rest awaits you after each rep.

It's kind of a reward after a brief push.

And you can reset your motivation after each rest.

The last merit is the same as all the other Ks.

It helps you develop a very good sense of race rhythm.

In today's workout I changed the duration of rest between 30 and 60 seconds.

When you set off for a new rep after a shorter rest,

it's as challenging as running the same distance at a faster pace.

Physical merits of this alteration are yet to known to me,

but it certainly made the workout more interesting, 

and the whole workout felt shorter in time when it was done

than when I ran the same distance without a break,

though the truth of them matter is the latter takes much shorter time.

This coming Sunday I would like to go for a 20+ slow jog.

I haven't decided where.

But hopefully it will be some quite area with beautiful nature and scenic landscape. 


Today's result is as follows:

Set 1: 4:42
Rest: 30 seconds
Set 2: 4:30
Rest: 60 seconds
Set 3: 4:42
Rest: 30 seconds
Set 4: 4:45
Rest: 60 seconds
Set 5: 4:47
Rest: 30 seconds
Set 6: 4:51
Rest: 60 seconds

Set 5: 4:47
Rest: 30 seconds
Set 6: 4:51
Rest: 60 seconds
Set 7: 4:52
Rest: 30 seconds
Set 8: 4:39
Rest: 60 seconds

Set 9: 4:41
Rest: 30 seconds
Set 10: 4:37

Interval Training: Mixed Ks

I did 10 × 1 K interval training today.
I mixed three different paces: marathon pace, half-marathon pace, and 10 K pace.
I ran the first set at marathon pace, 5:40/K,
took a 30-second rest,
and quickly set off for the second set,
which was run at half-marathon pace, 4:50/K.
I took a little longer rest, a minute, after finishing the half-marathon pace K.
The third set was run at 10 K pace,
which is 4:30/K.
The rest after the 10 K pace run is the longest, two minutes.
After taking the rest I repeated the same cycle two more time,
and wrapped up the training by running the last set
at marathon pace again.
It took me 59 minutes 17 seconds to finish today's training.
It was challenging, but not painful.
A good thing about mixed Ks is
that you can activate different systems in one training,
by changing the pace.
Also, running at a fast is less painful
because you progressively increase the challenge.
Plus, the duration of the rest is adjusted
depending on the pace.
I would like to do it again.
Hopefully, I can cover 12 K next time.
We'll see...

Today's result is as follows:

Set 1: 5:15
Set 2: 4:35
Set 3: 4:22
Set 4: 5:13
Set 5: 4:45
Set 6: 4:22
Set 7: 5:29
Set 8: 4:42
Set 9: 4:27
Set 10: 5:27

Revenger's 42.195 K

April 19, 2015 is a day I will never forget.
I ran Kasumigaura Marathon, and it was a terrible race.
Both of my legs suffered a serious pain after 28 K,
and the rest of the race was nothing but a torture.

The poor result was caused by a number of reasons.
One was lack of practice.
The previous month was very busy with seminars,
and I had no choice but give priority to the job.
Another reason was lack of motivation.
Two months before the full marathon,
I had run the Ohme 30 K Road Race,
and renewed my personal best time.
The training I had done for the race was so hard
that I was simply burned out.

After the race I was so disappointed
that I wanted to shift my mind
off long-distance running,
and spent more time cycling.

I even thought that running was not for me.
I started looking for all kinds of excuses
why all the hard work wouldn't pay off.

But eventually I overcame the negative mental attitude.
Two things helped me.
One was my friend.
I have a number of running friends.
Some of them are older than me.
Yet one of them renewed his personal best.
I thought age wasn't an issue at all.

The other is my professional pride.
As a professional English trainer,
I have seen so many students lose motivation
after a temporary failure.
Every time that happens, I always encourage them to
carry on with their training,
saying, "Training never betrays you."
I wanted to live what I say in my profession in my other passion also.

I focused my time and energy once again on long-distance running.
I ran day and night, even on freezing nights.

And the race day came.
I ran.
I finished.
And the time was the second best in the six full marathons I had run.

All the bad memories of Kasumigaura Marthon vanished,
and rays of hope shone down on me again.

Running is not 'not for me'.
I WILL continue to run, run, and run.

The next big race is the Ohme 30 K Road Race on Feb. 21.
My personal best time is 2:38:18 (Net: 2:34:29)
My goal this year is to finish under 2:30:00 (net).

A Twist on 1,000-Meter Repeats: Alternating Ks

Three days after running a full marathon in Tateyama,

I felt fully recovered, so I decided to hit the road again

to have interval training.

The interval training I did tonight is called alternating Ks.

Basically it's 12 × 1K,but you alternate

between marathon pace (5:40/km)and half-marathon pace (4:50/km)

with a 30-second rest after the marathon pace run

and a one-minute rest after the half-marathon pace one.

The purpose of this is to improve fatigue resistance

and also to develop a better sense of race rhythm.

It's also far less boring than running 12 K continuously 

more or less at the same pace.

Tonight's result is as follows:

1st Set: 5:15

2nd Set: 4:36

3rd Set 5:24

4th Set: 4:42

5th Set: 5:24

6th Set: 4:40

7th Set: 5:17

8th Set: 4:48

9th Set: 5:34

10th Set: 4:36

11th Set: 5:24

Last Set : 4:32