Fixed the bike, broke myself...

Yesterday was meant to be a 7 mile LSD, but it ended up as a quick paced 8. I had a fresh set of boundaries mapped out by google and committed to memory, I was feeling pretty confident from how well the week in running was going. nary a sore muscle to be found on my person, the weather was brisk, but a strategic array of layering kept said person comfortably cool. I blame shoddy construction work for disrupting my routine. Every time I turned a corner I ran into “road closed” signs, usually I run through anyway, subject to the glowering faces of workers standing around, but today the trucks were scattered about blocking entire portions of the road, in several locations, on several streets. I was cut off, and had to recalculate my path. Annoyed, I broke out into Flourtown, far away from the confining construction consternation. I knew where I was, but only had a rough idea of how far it was to get back to where I wanted to be. I usually don't head towards Flourtown, because I don't want to deal with having to wait out the traffic at the busier intersections in getting there and back. 

The run itself went extremely well. I never once felt tired, I kept up a strong pace, and got to cover new terrain that I hadn't viewed from a runners perspective previously. There were long stretches of slow burning hills during which I couldn't help but think, “I can see how Forrest Gump could just keep running”. That's how comfortable things were. So what happened? I came home too pressed for time to partake in my normal post-run stretch routine and protein “shake” (this is a misnomer, since what I mean to describe is actually stirred, but there's something wholly unappealing about referring to a beverage as a protein stir. So shake it is!). 

It wasn't immediately apparent after the run, but by the evening when I was walking through the city, and having to traverse subway steps, I knew exactly what I was dealing with, again...Some of you may remember I mentioned something about a pain in my knee that reared up and disappeared, like a devil-toothed porpoise-shark hybrid breaching the ocean surface for air before returning to the depths of the sea to reclaim its next victim, which in hindsight was a tell-tale sign of the horrors to come. ITBS (Iliotibial Band Syndrome) is a sharp, unforgiving, pain that shoots up the outside of the knee. It occurs mainly as an “overuse” injury. Those that have dealt with this before will immediately attest to how difficult bending the injured leg, or walking down steps, becomes when it feels like your knee is a radial saw that your nerve endings are being sliced by. I've dealt with this injury before, except in the opposite knee, when I first started running over a year ago; too much, too fast, too soon. It took about 2 frustrating weeks to fully recover, but I was far more reckless in caring for it then. This time, I jumped right on it, because I knew something was happening. 

You can probably imagine my fear in how a 2 week set back in marathon training two weeks into the program would be a cause for alarm. I think this time around, it wasn't entirely the running that did me in, but possibly the bicycle cross-training last Sunday. I hadn't been on a bicycle for months, and last Sunday afternoon I hopped on my tentatively functioning Schwinny Cooper and pedaled away like Lance Armstrong fleeing a tidal wave of snarling cheetahs that just escaped from the zoo with a ravenous taste for human flesh. Other contributing factors under consideration for Saturday's injury: 


1) Accidentally running 8 miles, instead of the recommended 7 on the Hal Higdon schedule. 


2) I ran surprisingly faster than I intended to, even though this was supposed to be a LSD run. 


3) I ran a different course than I had planned which had far more hills and uneven terrain (see above: construction consternation). 


4) I didn't stretch at all when I got home (because I was pressed for time and needed to be somewhere). 

I'm somewhat worried about how my spirit will handle this set back. Week two was going so well, and this has the potential to break my spirit so early in the game. This recovery will become a test of patience, because every instinct in me just wants to get up and run, but that, along with parkour, is one of the main activities to avoid while ITBS symptoms persist. We'll see...

10-K race as a hard training run

Tokyo, Week 2, Day 7; 6.2 miles, 8:33/mile.

As today's a day off, I'll write about my race yesterday.

I ran a 10-K race along the Ara River. My goal wasn't to go out and kill it like a race I'm well prepared for; I wanted to just get out there at a kind of hard pace that I could hold up for the entire race. And, judging by the fact that today is the first day I've been sore since I started training, I must have succeeded in that.

I'm still not completely sure what I ran. First, my Nike+ iPod told me I reached the 5-K point a while after I reached the midpoint of the out-and-back run, meaning one of them was off. I think I might try to calibrate my Nike+ sensor on a track during the Namban Rengo's Wednesday night interval workout. Second, when I finished the race, I was too focused on getting a drink to bother to pay attention to my time, which I would have had to get off of the paper on to which they had noted it down. So that left me pretty much in the dark as to what I actually ran.

Still, the Nike+ iPod had my pace at something sub-8:00/mile for the first half and going as low as maybe 8:30/mile for the second half. I'd venture that I averaged about 8:15/mile, which would make put me at something over 50 minutes for the race. I hope they post the results soon so I can see how I really did. Update: The results have been posted here in the comments. My results were a little slower than I thought: 51:24, or about 8:33/mile.

Oh, and the women's race was won by the only other vegan in the group (go Meg!).

After the race, most of the participants went to a Japanese bath house. A nice dip in a Japanese bath after a race sure makes your legs hurt a lot less. I spent most of my time in the rotenburo, or outside bath, which is, as you might guess, outside. It was just cold enough to give you a nice chill when you got out of the hot water.

Then it was back to the river for the post-race barbeque, kids race and awards ceremony. In addition to us two vegans, there were a number of vegetarians with whom we set up a little vegetarian powwow. There was plenty of vegan food to go around; there was salsa, tortilla chips, potato chips, salad, and veggie skewers. Another vegetarian brought some tofu to cook up on the barbeque while I brought hummus, pita, and baby carrots. After eating some of all of that, I was pretty much completely stuffed.

All in all, a fun day and a decent run for just two weeks of training. That said, here's looking forward to lots of improvement...

Building cross training into the schedule

Tokyo, Week 2, Day 6; 10km on a bike.

Today I had to go into the office, so instead of assuming my strap hanger pose I decided to make the 5km distance trek on bike to cover my cross training for the week. I learned two things today. First, Tokyo is damn hilly (something I learned more on the uphill parts than on the downhill parts). Second, having to frequently stop for red lights, other bikes, pedestrians, cars, etc., is really annoying. It's much easier to avoid that when running because you can just turn a bit up the street while waiting, but that's not so easy on a bike. I wonder if there's a path somewhere around here that I can bike on without needing to stop so much.

The Short Shrift Cycling Shorts

I'm certainly no cyclist. I never have been. I was a skater growing up, and while applying grip tape could be a messy task to take on from time to time, a board with wheels is definitely a whole hell of a lot simpler to deal with than the moving mechanisms of a bicycle. I stated earlier in the week that cycling was somewhere in my future plans for effective cross training, but with the state of disrepair my bicycle was in, I wasn't considering taking it on anytime soon. However, in the full spirit of the marathon, I wanted to broaden my cross training options, so I dutifully went and got a new tire and a portable pump for my Schwinny Cooper.

While changing the back tire, I felt around the inside rim and found the culprit behind my flat. A sliver of metal so slim that it would shame an average staple into an abysmal obesity complex. After pumping up the new tire, I took it for a quick spin, and was satisfied with things appearing OK for the time being. I did have visions of the wheel that I just screwed back on coming off, and me breaking my face and legs in an over the handlebars dive due strictly to my mechanical incompetence. But hopefully the vision is the closest that this scenario comes to a reality. This fear is founded on the fact my bicycle is a crap trap of frustrating defects. I got burnt on craigslist because the guy selling it knew a lot, and I knew not nearly enough above nothing to realize how much work it really needed. I literally have electrical tape keeping the straps on my pedals in place. Seriously, how safe can that be?

I plotted a 10 mile course around the neighborhood using Google maps. I use this same method for scoping out runs ahead of time too; I highly recommend it. In my mind, 10 miles on a bicycle didn't seem far at all, but I wanted to take it easy my first day out as to avoid any chance of overexertion this early in my training schedule. As much as it would suck to get an injury anytime during this process, I think it would be the most frustrating on a cross training day, because I'm not even running. I threw on a pair of running shorts, despite knowing beforehand how chilly it was outside, but the only pants I have are loose legged, and therefore run the risk of getting snagged on the chain. This shorts call was a bad one. They weren't cycling shorts at all. Just plan shorts I wear running; I won't even go so far to call them running shorts, since I'm not even sure they were meant to do even that. Unfortunately, they are far removed from sufficient cycling shorts since they rode up high along my thighs as the biting bitter cold wind invited itself along for the ride. 10 miles quickly became what seemed like FOREVER. I'm not even sure how long I was gone. It felt like Luke before Han stuffed him into the Tauntaun. Unfortunately my bicycle has no belly to keep me warm, so if I fell out here, Hoth be damned, I was going to freeze. 

My chain has a tendency to pop off at the most inconvenient times; I know, what constitutes a convenient time for this? I can only reply, when I'm not on it? For this ride, it happened while struggling up a steep hill, with drafty winds nipping at my nethers, that runs alongside a golf course. Many times I've entertained the danger of being beamed by a golf ball in this scenario, either out of accident or spite, ever since the day I was running alongside another golf course, and the parked van about 15 feet ahead of me got pinged by ball. I have no reason to believe the golfers were aiming at me, but one never knows...

Anyway, I made it home, cold, sweaty, and tired from what I figured was going to be an easy day of cross training. I was wrong on all accounts. I think next week I shall incorporate cross-cross training into the mix, until I develop more cycling strength, which will consist of me biking 4 miles to a park, walking a few miles while there, then biking the 4 miles home. This seems along the lines of a bikers version of The Art of Amateur Fartleking, that I spoke of for running. 

Midnight run

Tokyo, Week 2, Day 5; 3 miles, 8:53/mile.

So tonight was one of those nights at work where every time you think you're about to leave the office, something else falls into your lap. Determined not to miss another run this week (I missed one already), i was resolute that when I got home, I'd go for a run.

I got home around midnight and pretty much went right out the door. At 11º C, it was a pretty chilly night, but it felt about right for a run. I ran the 3 miles at a pace that was just a tad faster than I ran earlier this week, but I didn't feel nearly as beat up afterwards. Guess that rest did me some good. I wonder how much faster I can get just by resting...

Work 1, Run 0

Argh. Up late last night doing work, meant I tried to put off my run until tonight. Stuck at work until now (3 a.m.) + an early morning means no run tonight or tomorrow morning. Well, here's to Friday night runs...

Rhythm Method: Atlas Sound - Walkabout

Combine Bradford Cox and Noah Lennox and you get this great Atlas Sound song that should not only put you in the right mood to run, but also give you something to think about with its nostalgic charm of self-reflective reevaluation. An official video doesn't seem available, but this one uses stock footage that matches the tone quite well.  

Atlas Sound: Walkabout

The Art of Amateur Fartleking

While glancing over my training schedule early this morning I saw that Higgy Stardust noted today's run was supposed to be my hard day. Throughout the day I felt an odd pain in my left knee that had me worried about this hard day's night run coming up when I got back from classes. I couldn't really pinpoint what the pain was, since it was inconsistent in when it chose to present itself. It was sharp, brief, and to say the least, worrisome. But by the time I got home and geared up to run I was feeling pretty good; so I let my apprehension melt away like a snow-cone dropped on a hot city sidewalk in mid-July, all the while tears cascading down the cheeks of a lonely little girl whose lot in life is to subsist in a reality where her only desire is vanishing before her watery eyes. I indulged in a handful of cashews about half an hour before my run, which I normally would avoid like the Rand (I'm not saying Dickens, I like Dickens; despise the Rand), but the only other sustenance I had all day was a banana in the early afternoon delight, so I figured I needed a little fuel to face the fast pace race speed.

I decided, just about the moment I started running, that I would embrace today's workout by fartleking my way through the 3 miles. I know, 3 miles doesn't give you much room to speed play, but I made the most of it. Along the way I'd pick a lampost and hike my pace up until I made it to a parked car off in the comfortable distance, or sometimes I just ran a block with the Falcon in hyperdrive, before reverting back to an even recovery pace in preparation for the next speed segment. This really works quite well for those that want to remove the structure from within their run, throw out the need to add up numbers on the old abacus or Casio calculator watch (or whatever the kids use these days for computations) and just have fun with it. You can be more disciplined about it if you want to keep the numbers in play, but I prefer the capricious approach. 


I've recommended this down and dirty art of amateur fartleking approach to a number of people who want to start running, but hate running (like I once did: story to come). Using this method as a proper introduction to running, a non-runner won't burn themselves out too soon when taking the jog/walk fartlek approach, because your body needs to get used to the idea of motion before going too fast, too far, too soon (a painful personal lesson I learned at the outset of my running habit: story to come). This essentially increases the chances of a non-runner actually running again. The beauty behind the fartlek is that as much as it works for beginners, it works for all other skill levels as well, because it's very much a personalized workout strategy. You set the limits of your own comfort level and basically make a game out of accomplishing these miniature goals along the way. I finished today feeling like I had accomplished a very solid run, probably the best one I've had since I started the training last Tuesday. 

Rhythm Method: "Io sono il re" by Triba

Since I mentioned earlier today that I was fortunate to have some good, quick songs come up in the playlist while running today, I thought I'd introduce the one that set the pace for the run: Io sono il re by Triba. This Italian song from 2002 was the first song in the playlist, and resulted in me running the first mile of the run at 8:26 simply by going along with the music.

Surprisingly speedy

Tokyo, Week 2, Day 3; 3 miles, 8:55/mile.

A virtuous congruence of several things appears to have led to a surprisingly speedy pace of 8:55/mile today: nice weather, two days of rest, no touch of the tightness in my achilles' that I had last week, a string of up-tempo songs on my iPod, letting loose on downhill segments while pushing it on uphill segments, etc. The real trick now is preventing a slide back towards the roughly 10-minute mile pace I was doddering along at last week.

Mixing up the schedule a bit

Tokyo, Week 2, Day 2.

Today I was supposed to go for a run in the morning, but sleeping through my alarm meant no time for a run. I got home from work relatively early tonight, but I ended up falling asleep early too, so in the end I'm shifting the runs back at day, losing the rest day on Friday to balance out the extra one I had on Tuesday.

I'm also flipping around the weekend runs this week. Saturday will be cross training while Sunday will be a 10K race + a barbeque, both organized by the Namban Rengo, "Tokyo's international running club". Given that by the time of that race I'll have been training for a grand total of two weeks, I'm gonna treat the race like a training run rather than a race, but it'll be good to meet some of the other runners in the area.

I also appear to be one of four veg/vegan runners (out of 125 or something like that), so as someone else has already volunteered to make vegan desserts, I'm going to see if I can whip up some barbeque appropriate vegan food.

The Curious Kayaker

I woke up curious about something today: if I add up all the miles I will run while training for this marathon, how far would that actually get me? Over the course of the next 18 weeks, I will be running 435 miles (461.2 including the Tokyo Marathon). That means I could run back and forth from Philadelphia to NYC about 5 times. I could make it to DC and back 3 and a half times. Or I could run to Toronto Canada, and still have enough miles left over to jog about and see the sights! This would save me lots on bus fare, but I guess once I crossed over, I'd have to convert to kilometers. Ah, sweet sweet metric. I suppose I should get used to keeping track of kilometers, since the marathon is in Japan.

My next question was, how far would those miles get me if I were to set a course for Tokyo right now. A quick Google maps search led me to discover the suggested route is 9,574 miles, which takes an estimated 36 days and 5 hours (127 days, if by foot, which I'm already too late to partake in; maybe next year) from Philadelphia to Tokyo. You might wonder how Google maps thinks this voyage is possible, and I was quite pleased to see that once I make my way to the to the opposite end of America, a quick Kayaking trip of 14 days across the Pacific Ocean will land me in Hawaii. From there, after reliving a few key scenes from Lost (my suggestion, not Google's), it's only another 20 days of kayaking the open sea until the land of the rising sun is met by me. So it seems if rest days were never a necessity, and it didn't cut into my regular marathon training schedule, then this method of travel would cover all my cross training requirements, and then some. I wonder if Hal Higdon has a secret advanced program that embraces this method?

From Philly to Tokyo

Marathons and your heart: Long term, good; short term, bad

This is kind of scary.

The Long Haul

I know it's going to sound slightly masochistic, but I've been looking forward to my long run all week. Since starting the Hal Higdon schedule, I've actually whittled down the milage per week I have grown accustomed to, and in an illogically backwards chain of events, I feel like I've had more difficulty getting through the new routine, despite the drop in distance. So with the approach of today's 6 miles on the horizon, I see an opportunity to return to my comfort zone once again: the long slow distance (LSD). Why is this the case? I have a few theories: 

1) Running Fasterer—subconsciously, I've cranked the volume to 11 compensating for the knowing lack of length in my jaunts through the streets of O-town. Therefore, I'm burning myself out early on by hitting the hilly course too hard. 

2) Another day/Another dollar—While it's true I'm running less miles per week, this new routine has effectively added another day to my schedule. Before, I was running 5 miles 2 (or 3) days a week, Tuesday & Thursday (with optional Saturdays). On Sundays, I would run a long slow distance (LSD) of about 8-10 miles. But here in Higdon country, I no longer have the luxury of that rest day in the middle of the week. So when Thursday rolled around this week, I was aching straight out of the gate. I should also note that my run on Wednesday was late in the evening, with my Thursday run early in the morning. Recovery time, and nutritional replenishment was in short supply. 

3) Where Is My Mind?—The week prior to commencing this marathon training endeavor I was pretty excited to get things underway. The program starts on a Monday, and Monday happened to be a rest day. I'm a big fan of any new routine that begins with me having to do nothing. Instant success! Now, Monday leads to Tuesday, as so often is the case, and I feel like I psyched myself out about the importance of this first run. It shouldn't have mattered that much, but it was a big deal, since in 125 days from the moment I took that first step, I would be doing this thing for real, where it counted most, surrounded by a whole hell of a lot of other people trying to get through this same thing alive. 

We'll see how week two goes. Despite the weather growing increasingly bitter cold, I remain optimistic. 

Rhythm Method: The Ulfuls' "Gattsu Da Ze"

In contrast to what Joe wrote, I'm not so sure that running music is all that subjective. I recall reading a while back that there was a study that showed that people tend to line up their pace with the pace of the music they're listening to, so faster music means faster running. This seems like once of those no-duh things that you didn't need a study to prove, but basically you should get music whose beats per minute (BPM) matches the pace you want to run.

That said, it still probably helps if it's music you actually like as opposed to something that drives you nuts.

So, being in Japan, I thought I'd start with a Japanese song, so here's one of my long-time favorites, Gattsu Da Ze (ガッツだぜ) by the Ulfuls. Not only does it have a decent BPM, but it also has lyrics that are basically telling you kick some butt, all mixed together with a nice dollop of Ulful silliness, which is much more apparent in the video (which I had never actually seen until writing this post).

Cross training on a bike

Tokyo, Week 1, Day 7; 3.3 miles on a bike.

So I've never actually bothered to consistently cross train before. Back in high school and college (and, randomly, one of the times I was in Beijing), I often went for a quick swim after running since there was a pool right next to the lockers, and always loved how loose you feel after that. The problem is I'd actually have to shell out cash and spend time going somewhere to pull that off here, so that swimming off the list.

Back in high school, we also had stationary bikes that I used to use for a post-warmdown warmdown sometimes, and that had a similar effect of loosening things up. Well, as a I have a cheap bike (complete with a basket on the front for carrying things) that I bought at Saty primarily for transportation purposes back when I was living it the 'burbs of Tokyo, I broke it out for the first time since moving to Tokyo proper for today's work-out.

I was kind of time constrained because I needed to be back before my wife needed to go out, and that constraint got worse because I needed to pump the tires, get the bike out of where it was stored, etc. I ended up not having a lot of time, so I just decided I'd do the same course I did yesterday, but with only one lap around the park-like thing.

Since I don't have a wrist-borne time device of any sort (I use a Nike+ iPod when running, but that's not so useful when riding a bike), I had to improvise, so my wife gave me a kitchen timer to put in the bike's basket. It did the trick, but it almost fell out of the basket as it bounced violently around when I decided to ride the bike down some steps that are on the alley part of the loop.

Anyway, what's the verdict? A 3.3-mile bike ride feels like nothing, even for someone who never rides a bike. I barely broke a sweat and was back in no time at all, although I did get the loosening-up effect I was looking for. I'm definitely going to have to up the mileage next week so maybe I'll actually feel like I had a work-out.

The Rhythm Method 01

This will be an ongoing series of posts dedicated specifically to the music that gets us pumped to run. Obviously, more so than anywhere else on here, this will be the most subjective section. What works for us, may be way off the mark for others, but all the same, music is an important aspect of life we can often count on to get us in the right frame of mind to take on the miles ahead.  

In the process we might convert a few new fans to stuff you may not be aware of (or just forgot about). I know Vincent has a grab bag of goodies that will have you guessing as to their country of origin and native tongue. Or we might send you into a full-bodied convulsion fleeing towards the nearest fire escape with hands firmly planted over your precious assaulted aural anatomy. If nothing else, we've succeeded in what we promised to do: introduce music that makes you, for better or worse, want to run.

Final disclaimer: I grew up firmly planted in a freshly tilled bed of punk rock/post-punk soil. Though I have embraced a much broader palette of musical paints as I've aged, many of the portraits I paint now are reminiscent of those same fertile fields I wandered through as a wee lad, which still evoke a similar elation. To this day, for me, there's really nothing quite like the rumbling guitars that invite the monstrous swell of visceral energy that sends your heart into a frenzy trying to punch its way out of your chest in the opening seconds of Minor Threat's Filler on a warm spring afternoon. Ah, this post wasn't meant to wax nostalgic on the issue of music, but what the hell, there it is. 

First up: The dB's Black & White...

Running with Chaba through a fashion shoot

Tokyo, Week 1, Day 6; 6 miles, 9:53/mile.

Today was one of those days when you look out and you think, "Maybe if I wait a bit more, the rain will stop." Sadly, that's not going to work when you're at the front end of a typhoon. So despite the rain and wind, which both got progressively worse as I went along, Chaba and I enjoyed our little run.

Today's course was around the Institute of Nature Study, which looks like a big park in the middle of Tokyo on Google maps, but in fact is some kind of science thing like the Morris Arboretum back home. Bottom line for runners: you can't run through it, but you can run the perimeter.

And that's what I did. The south and east sides are right next to lots of green stuff, so you feel like you're in a park, while the north and west sides are mostly a kind of alley between houses on the outside and some big road on the inside. Part of it is covered completely from the rain.

It's about a mile from my house to the closest part of the perimeter, and then it's about a 1.3 mile loop around the park, so that meant three loops and change plus the runs to and back.

It was on my third and final complete loop that I had one of those only-in-Japan moments. I was running through the fairly secluded alley part on the north side in a part that was out of the rain, when I saw some guy holding one of those things you use to reflect light up at a photo shoot. As I got closer, I saw three photographers snapping pics of some girl modelling clothes, and it's definitely the first time a run has taken me through a photo shoot of any kind.

Day #2: Poo Shoes

I stepped in dog poo a week or so ago--it wasn't my fault, it usually never is. Which is to say, I didn't do it intentionally. I was walking down the street in a pair of "semi-retired" running shoes when I noticed a car barreling down my side of the road. Now, I'm what you might consider a dabbler in the fine art of self-preservation. It's just something I tend to do from time to time. I enjoy it. So the instinctual me, witnessing the girl behind the wheel looking down and to the right at what I can only assume was a text message, or thumbing through her ipod's Katy Perry playlist, thought the safest place for me to be was out of the way of the advancing automobile. Logical me agreed, and with an alarming quickness I followed their lead off to the side of the road. That would turn out to be the fatal step…well fatal in the sense that it was literally not so much, but the potential was there, possibly. So the car passes and I'm standing in dog poo. What is one to do? Neither instinctual nor logical me have a fail-safe for this scenario, so with slumped shoulders I sulked my way home. One could almost hear the Vince Guaraldi Trio playing on the heels of my traipsing footfalls.  

Anyway…about the running…today was a miserably rainy day, and being the second official day of my marathon training I wasn't going to entertain the idea of skipping out. Every day counts, even this early on: a precedent must be set. So the optimist within me sought long and hard before spotting a silver lining in the brown cloud, as it were, that had plagued my life a week prior. Though I had spent a good amount of time and chemicals cleaning the dog poo from my running shoes, there was still a lingering sense of something unsettling about the idea of what had happened to them. In consideration of the wet weather outside my window I decided it was the perfect condition for a further cleansing of my shoes. I would, in essence, take them to the rain-dro-mat, for a more thorough washing. I gingerly tied up the laces and was off. 

Given my choice of elements to run in, I'd probably pick a straight up rain over excessive heat, extreme winds, or snow, any day of the week. Don't get me wrong, running on a rainy day is never truly a good idea. Among the plethora of egregious aspects to deal with, you have slick surfaces, soggy socks, decreased visibility, and small reservoirs of muddy road water to leap over at any given intersection. At this time of year, with autumn fresh in the air, a leafy patch covering acorns scattered beneath its sprawl is a trap of slap-stick comedic calamity waiting to spring. The Japanese have wise words of warning one should abide by: 気をつけて。Be cautious, be careful. 

Today, with the cleanliness of my soles at the forefront of my thought process I embraced the puddles. Though I wouldn't say I recklessly ran towards them, as much as I just half-heartedly avoided them, ending up with soaked, but stench-free, shoes all the same. I'm pretty sure this method worked quite well. Though I left them banished to the basement to dry out overnight, as if they had done something wrong. If nothing else, the rain-dro-mat went a long way in assuaging the neurosis over the initial problem. Once they dry out, they should be in prime form for future walks in the coming weeks. As for now, much of my cross training days will be dedicated to walking. I realize that walking flirts dangerously close with its cousin running slowly, and therefore, almost incestuously, takes much of the "cross" out of the training, since you're exercising many of the same muscles, but from a recovery/biomechanics stand point, you're not attacking those joints and muscles with the same stressful ferocity as a run. So it works quite well in a pinch. Ideally, once I fix the flat tire on my bicycle, I'll be using that as my main source of cross training. But who knows when I'll actually get around to making that happen, since I don't even have a presta pump to put air in the tire once it's fixed/replaced. Someday…

Rejected by the powers that be at the Tokyo Marathon

In contrast to Joe's luck, this story starts with me not being selected to participate in the 2011 Tokyo Marathon. Joe and I had big plans to double team the Tokyo marathon with some mad O-town style, but the raffle gods frowned upon me and I didn't make the first cut. Now my only chance is making a second cut after people who made the first cut fail to pay, but I don't have high hopes for that.

So that leaves me wondering if I can somehow just stroll out in the mass of people who'll be running it and just run it all the same without registering. People do that in the States all the time at the 5-Ks and 10-Ks that I typically run, but they're pretty hardcore about preventing things like that here in Tokyo, and it'll become even more obvious as the pack spreads out. Will I be refused drinks at the water stands? Will some overzealous John McClane wannabe take me out in a full body tackle and cuff me when he sees I'm lacking a race number? Not sure I'd care to find out...

So since Joe's got me all pumped about running, my plan B is to map out my own marathon and run it on the same day, or maybe plan C is to find another marathon to run nearby, although I didn't find anything close on RunNet.jp.

So here's the quick about-me rundown... Like Joe, I've been vegan for about half my life (and only a month or two longer than him) and a mathoner never. Unlike Joe, I've been running for a bit longer than I've been vegan. I was a consistent runner throughout high school and college, but then became an off-and-on runner who would train for a race, run it, and then fade off for a bit, or haphazardly run for a bit with no goal in mind but then, again, fade off. Perhaps training for a marathon that I probably won't even be able to run is a sign that I'll be able to run consistently from here on...

For this elusive marathon, I'm also using Hal Higdon's Novice 1 marathon training program, which both Joe and I started on Monday, October 24 (conveniently a day of rest).

Blitzkreig Bop!

So it goes…this story starts with me being selected to participate in the Tokyo Marathon 2011 on February 27th. Amidst the initial feelings of exhilaration and, conversely, acute apprehension, I have roughly 125 days to convince myself that, OK, sure, human beings are capable of running 26.2 miles, and being human therefore means I, too, as well, can possibly, tap into this potential. If all goes well, come February, I'll be fording through the pedestrian flooded streets of Tokyo by the combined merit of my mind and feet alone. 


As you will learn, through the random twists & turns unfolding throughout this story, I've been vegan for half my life, a runner for a little over a year, and a marathoner never. The Tokyo Marathon will be the catalyst in a series of life events 2011 has hiding in the shadows of an ill lit decrepit back alley waiting to attack me with duel-fisted argyle dress socks, filled with nickels, swirling above its head like the blades of dust laden ceiling fans. And I'm allergic to dust! Duck and cover might work in this scenario, but who knows. Mainly the philosophy that I'm going to uphold for race day is: start running, and keep running until the finish line is behind me. Seems as reasonable as running 26.2 miles can be…I suppose. Along the way, I'll be using the Hal Higdon Novice 1 marathon training program. So here we are…day one…Hey ho, let's go!