Year-End 15 K Jog with Friends

Jan. 29, 2021

Today is the day for an annual event of mine: the year-end run with friends. Three runner friends of mine joined me for a fun run in Central Tokyo. 

Leaving Raffine Running Style Kanda at 10:00 a.m. our first destination was a taikyaki shop below. A taiyaki is a pancake typically stuffed with sweet red bean paste. Each of us had our favorite kind to fully charge our body's batteries.

Our next transit was the Kaminarimon Gate in Asakusa. It was filled with a lively atmosphere of year-end. We got a photo taken below with the famous gate in the background. 

After having lunch at Burger King in Asakusa, we ran through Ueno to come back to Kanda before 2:00 p.m., way before originally scheduled. 

After a quick shower, three of us hit a local Chinese restraunt and enjoyed having a light meal and some beer. 

It was a very refreshing run. I feel so good that I was able to cover 15 K without feeling any pain in my recovering left knee. I hope to go for a recovery walk tomorrow.

First Post-Race Run After Kasumigaura

April 18, 2019

15.8 K: 1:30:12

I had my first practice run after the Kasumigaura Marathon. The soles have completely healed. And I feel completely recovered.  As an experiment I put on a pair of socks for minimum protection with Shoe Goo glued onto the sole. 

This is something I almost always feel in the first running session after a full marathon, I felt light as feather, and felt like I could go on forever. It's a good feeling. It's enough to make me feel that each time you complete a full marathon, regardless of how good or bad the result is, you become stronger. 

I was originally planning to run only 10 K, but I felt so good that I added extra 5.3 K shown on the map above, and made it a good 15 K session. I made a few water stops, and one fairly long break to use the men's room, but increased the pace with east in the last four kilometers, and covered total 15.8 K in about an hour and a half. I sustained the fast pace until the last moment but breathing was easy, and I felt like I could go on another couple of miles at the same pace. I was planning to reduce the amount of training during the off season, but if running has become this much easier than before after the race, I want to keep this capacity, build on it, and carry it through to September to become a much, much stronger and faster version of myself.