Winter is coming

Tokyo winter - bleak and grey

I arrived back in Japan this Monday after a pretty good two weeks in Australia. The weather there was up and down, but the last couple of days were quite warm. Monday I was basically flying all day, and Tuesday I spent putting stuff away and cleaning up. Today was a day off too, and I settled back into Japanese life.

The weather had changed noticeably since I left, and most people on the streets were fully outfitted in their winter clothes. I started wearing a beanie and gloves for the first time this year. Winter is coming.

Japanese winters are not much fun for me. I grew up in country Victoria, and while that is not exactly the outback, winters were not anywhere near as cold and dark as here in Tokyo. And Tokyo’s general lack of vegetation makes it particularly bleak and grey in winter.

The cold and the wind are not so nice, and the fact that it gets dark at around 5pm doesn’t help. But there is something else about the winter here, something I can’t quite articulate, that I don’t look forward to at all, and the rapid weather change brought it home today.

Then I went to Namban. Tonight we did 1200m, 1200m, 1000m, 1000m, 800m, 800m. I started out wearing many layers of clothes, and gradually stripped down over the course of the intervals. I have hardly run at all since the Osaka marathon, and it felt good to be at the track again. I am a little out of shape after no running and lots of unhealthy food in Australia, but my legs definitely benefited from the rest.

As the intervals continued I gradually felt better and better, and the weather didn’t feel so cold at all. For the last 800 meters, Natalie kicked off her shoes to run barefoot, so I did too. We tore around the track, and as I was running out of energy at around 600 meters she encouraged me to keep up, which I did, and we made it to the finish line together. It was a good run.

Walking back to the change rooms I felt better than I had in days. The run around the track had blown away the cobwebs, the cold, and the darkness, and left me feeling much better. Winter is coming, but I feel ready to face it now.

Honorary Olympians

Our pre-race publicity shot

It is not everyday that one gets the chance to run in an Olympic stadium under a fire burning in the Olympic cauldron, but that is how I spent last Sunday afternoon. It was a memorable event.

Daniel, myself, Cato, and Thomas ran an ekiden, a Japanese long-distance relay race. None of us had done one before, and being Australian, Norwegian, and Canadian, we didn’t quite know how it all worked. Thomas did a great job taking care of registration and organizing things on the day.

There were over 400 four-person teams participating in the Number Do Ekiden, but everything seemed well-organized and went off without a hitch.

As it was our first race we had chosen a short ekiden, 18 kilometers in total, with Daniel running the first 6k leg, myself on the second 4.5k leg, Cato on the third 3k leg, and Thomas running anchor on the final 4.5k leg.

It was a hot, humid day, but fortunately the race started at 4pm, so it was not as bad as it might have been. All went well, apart from when I got confused towards the end and almost did an additional lap of the stadium.

We are the champions!

As with most Japanese races, a number of runners dressed up, with wigs, traditional Japanese dress, and one particularly masochistic team ran the entire distance inside a cardboard box! Despite that they managed to avoid last place, coming in second last to a rousing reception.

As we were unhindered by lugging a box around we did pretty well, finishing 71 out of the 408 finishing teams, with a total time of 1:24:50. Daniel ran his 6k in 24:38, my 4.5 was 21:55, Cato’s 3k was 17:03, and Thomas brought us home with his 4.5k on 21:16.

We finished off the day with a trip to an Izakaya (Japanese pub) and then some karaoke. A good end to a great day!

Starting video, shot by Thomas on his iPhone. The running box comes on-screen at 0:44.