Seeking target

So I'm attempting to sign up for a marathon in October; either the Arakawa Marathon on October 16, here in Tokyo, or the Osaka Marathon on October 30 in, obviously, Osaka. For the Arakawa Marathon, I might be able to get my hands on a free entry, but if not let's hope it's still open for registration. For the Osaka Marathon, registration is closed but they're apparently still looking for foreigners to fill their foreigner target of 3,000 people, so if I can't register for the more conveniently located Arakawa Marathon, Osaka it'll be.

That means my 18-week training program starts... on Monday.

Since the last run I posted about (on March 4), I've only been running here and there. I ran a bunch while back in the States as a flyjin, all in my Vibrams. However, since my post-marathon knee was still acting up, I basically decided to stop running and let that heal completely. Once back in Japan in April, I basically didn't run for the rest of that month and, since then, I've only ran sporadically.

So today I went for a quick little run, maybe 3 miles. My 6-year-old daughter insisted on coming, so I started the run with a 1 kilometer loop around the neighborhood. She called it after the first loop, so I ran off down my usual path up the hill towards Arisugawa Park. The run was nice and slow, and I didn't feel particularly beat after it, although after stretching I noticed just how sore my calves were—a side effect of the running position Vibrams put you into.

And, with today's run, I will hopefully be kicking off my training for the marathon, with the intention of doing all training and the marathon in Vibrams. I'll run another lazy run tomorrow and then jump into the training schedule. In contrast to the last marathon, I'll be seeking to get in a lot more stretching, which will hopefully work some wonders with regard to injury prevention. If I can avoid injury, then the only challenge should be squeezing runs into my work schedule, which as you may remember from my last jaunt with marathon training can be quite a challenge.

So here we go again...