Blog about Yoo, but me

Wow what a weekend. Long and painful, it was.

It first started with working on Saturday. Instead we get Monday off. It worked out better in the end. This was because the marathon on Sunday. Monday would be perfect to rest. Well after work, we headed to my coworker’s, Nakata-san, place in Ibusuki. Wow, he has a really nice place. A little house with 2 floors. But the awesome thing about this place is that they have their own private onsen. The hotspring water comes naturally to all the houses in the area. So it’s pretty sweet. Well we had a long day ahead of us so we decided to sleep early. Well the sleeping part didn’t take part for me and Wada-san. Ohira-san was snoring all night. Even with kicking and throwing stuff at him didn’t stop his snoring. I’m sure I got 1 hour sleep that night.

Well we got ready the next morning. Dressed, ate breakfast, and took our morning poo’s. lol. Nakata-san’s place was close to the marathon place. So we just walked over. Took about 15 minutes. Wow, there were a lot of people. We headed into this gym to get our registration numbers and free t-shirt. I’m glad I went to the washroom before I got here. There were huge line ups. Anyways, we had to go line up at the starting line. Everyone got split up. I saw it coming. There were over 20,000 people participating in the race.
The gun went off. The race had started. But no one was moving. LOL. There were too many of us. Finally, it got moving. But very slow. Like walking speed. Wow it was crowded. Slowly but surely the speed started to pick up. It was amazing view though. Just watching all the people behind and in front of me. It was crazy! Also it amusing to watch people in costumes. Like people dressed up in Spiderman, batman, Superman, maids, dancers, bees, etc. It always gave me a smile watching them. Also, people would run off course to have their pee breaks. It was funny a bunch of guys lined up taking a piss. LOL. Anyways, the first 5km’s was quite relaxing. Well, it was hard to go fast. TOO many people, like I said. We had our first h20 break around the 5km mark too. They were giving away water, sports drink, banana’s, and sweet potato. I grabbed some water and kept going. Avoiding the crowd as much as I can. Well, the course itself was amazing. The view was awesome! Mountains, lake, seas, flowers, etc. It was beautiful. The weather was amazing too. Not cold or hot. At around the 10km mark, Nakata-san caught up to me. We eventually lost each other. At the 15km mark, there was a h20 station that was giving Udon!!!! UDON!! lol. I didn’t grab any. Too many people, once again. At around 18km mark, I had my first gel pack. Me legs were kinda tightening up. I had to stretch before I continued. Oh, I should mention, I didn’t have a watch or there weren’t many signs that had that amount km’s left. At around 25km though, was very depressing. Well not depressing but sad. Meaning that we just passed the half way mark. At that point my legs were hurting. I wasn’t tired at all. Just my legs were hurting. The only thing that could keep me motivated was this girl. She was cute. So I followed her. She had a good pace going. So I made sure I stayed behind her. lol. No I wasn’t stalking her. Well I lost her after 30 km’s. Around then there was this one station that was giving red bean soup. It was so good. And old guys roasting rice cakes with soy sauce. So good! Anyways, I had to keep going. I took another gel pack around the 32 km mark. It gave me a boost of energy. Well that didn’t last long. At the 35km, my legs and my feet were hurting. And to add to that, there was a huge hill that we had to conquer. One of my coworkers told me that he saw me on the news. It had to be that moment. lol. At least I was on tv. Finally, defeating the hill, I thought we were almost there. NOT!!! Still had like 5 km to. Man the last 5km’s felt like eternity. I was in pain! I couldn’t run at all. However, the last 500m I limped my way to the finish line. I made it into the stadium and people cheering us on. It was such an amazing feeling to cross that finish line. I FINISHED A MARATHON!!!! Well it took me 5 hrs 59 mins (gun time). I’m sure I could have done better. But the less than 1 month training didn’t help. I got my free towel and a print out of my time. From there, I could finally relax! But I couldn’t. The pain!! haha
We all found each other some how. We headed back and took the taxi instead of walking. It was well worth it. We went back to Nakata-san’s place. And we relaxed in pain. lol… we washed up, took a nap, and ate dinner.

I had pain in my knees, thighs, feet, and forearm. I was a bit surprised my forearms would hurt. After 2 days, my thighs still hurt. Going down stairs hurts.

Without the support of the people on the streets, yelling Ganbatte (Do your best) and the cute girls running, I wouldn’t have been able to finish. lol.. But overall, it was a wonderful but painful experience. I probably won’t be doing another marathon again after that. I would be much more comfortable doing a half marathon the next time around. Plus the training part would have helped.

Today, it snowed in Kagoshima! And that’s very rare! I mean the snow stayed on the ground. It was very wet snow but still. Everyone was surprised. I loved it. I don’t think anyone else did. My first snow in Japan. Awesome!