Omachi Marathon

Regular readers may recall two years ago I ran in the Tokyo marathon and swore I'd never run another marathon. Well I have to eat those words now as I ran my second full marathon last Sunday in Omachi, a town north of Matsumoto. The memory of the pain of running it has faded and a desire to get a better time has been nagging me. I persuaded my girlfriend to run with me (though she opted for the 5km race instead). I have run other races recently and been enjoying training for it.

The conditions were great. A small field, good weather and a relatively flat course. It was a beautiful autumn day and the leaves were changing colour and the nearby mountains were seeing the first snow at the summit. The first 30 km went by quickly and uneventfully and so I could enjoy the view. Apparently all the training I had done did not stop me "hitting the wall"- that old runners cliche. The next few kilometres were an ordeal and though I managed to keep running my pace dropped off. To compound matters, 5 km from the finish my fragile hamstring which had behaved itself for 37km gave up and I had to limp the rest. I alternated between a running limp and a walking limp. I was in real pain and only kept up any kind of pace because of the supporters lining the route. I crossed the finish line and overcome with pain I collapsed and burst into tears. After a rest and some TLC from girlfriend (who had run very well in her own race) I contemplated what I had just done.

I had a few goals in mind before the race. First I wanted to beat my previous time. I did by more than 45 minutes. Second, I wanted to finish ahead of anyone in a costume. I did just. The clown ran me close right at the end. Third, I wanted to run in under 4 hours. I managed 4hours4mins37seconds and came 216th out of 1000 entrants in the marathon race. Close but no cigar.

Though the race hurt a lot I'm pretty sure I've done no permanent damage and I'm walking close to normal again. It was agony right at the end but most of the race was very enjoyable. I'm not going to make any rash promises about giving up running or not now. Most likely in a couple of years I'll forget the pain and want to get a better time again.

Silver Week Hiking in Tateyama

I have written on this blog before about hiking in Japan. I enjoy it and am very lucky to be in the middle of the Japan Alps and have so many places to hike. The mountains I have climbed in Japan, though quite high, have not been too challenging in that you don't need any specialist equipment (other than boots) or training. My friend Japan Hiking invited me on a three day hike through some of the toughest terrain in Japan. I jumped at the chance so during Silver Week, a coincidence of national holidays that creates a five day weekend every six years, Japan Hiking, his fiance, a Japanese friend of ours and myself set off.

The start and finish of our hike was the Kurobe dam, Japan's biggest. It is hard to imagine how this huge public works project ever happened. It took thousands of workers, billions

of dollars and decades to make this massive dam in the middle of nowhere and now as well as producing electricity it is an unlikely tourist attraction. We camped the first night near the Dam. I lost paper, scissor, rock and had to camp in undergrowth whilst everyone else had nice, flat pitches.

The next day we hiked from a starting height of 1500m up to 3000m and the top of Tateyama. You can take a cable car for most of the ascent

but we skipped that and hiked it to the surprise of the day trippers we bumped into. After we

followed the ridge and then hiking down to our campsite at 2500m we had walked for ten hours and I was exhausted. I had lugged some beers up the mountain and we drank them that evening and they tasted lovely and well deserved.

The next day was no let up. In the morning we climbed up Tsurugi dake. We dropped off our bags at the base and set off. The route was the most difficult I've ever climbed. Rocks mostly with 20 chain rope sections where it gets too steep to simply clamber up. The weather was rainy but perhaps that was a blessing since it wasn't crowded with people and you cou

ldn't see the sheer drops below. A few frayed nerves and along the way but we made it to the summit at 2999m and back. Having long legs made up for lack of climbing experience on this section and I enjoyed it a lot though it was a lot harder than I thought. We reunited with our bags, had lunch and then continued towards the next campsite. In between us and there was a 大雪渓 or snow valley. I was looking forward to this part the most and I had

bought crampons especially for it. By chance there were a couple of mountain patrol men on the same path. The warned us the snow had collapsed in the middle and showed us where to get on. Otherwise we would have been stuck in the middle of the snow and would've had to waste hours trudging back and around. There were amazing views down the snow valley and hiking with crampons proved to be easy enough.

The final day we hiked back to the Kurobe Dam. The path wasn't well used and proved to be a maze of ladders, ropes, rickety bridges and not flat at any point. In fact the whole hike was not flat at any point over difficult terrain. It was a

real challenge. I couldn't have done it without the help of the experienced climbers with me. Carrying a backpack with my tent and gear for three days added to the difficulty as well. All in all it was a hard but amazing hiking trip.

Spy School

I have just come back from a three week summer holiday in England. As well as catching up with family and friends I spent a week running a "Spy School". Spy School was a spy themed children's holiday organised by the charity ATE. I have been volunteering for ATE for 10 years, since before I went to Japan, and have previously worked on or directed holidays with maths, singing and robotics themes as well and no theme in particular. Earlier in the year ATE asked me if I wanted to direct a spy school. I thought "How many people ever get the opportunity to do something like this?" and agreed. I spent some of my free time in June and July planning and organising and came back to England early August. After a week back at home I went to Moor Park in Ludlow to run Spy School and this is how it went...
There were 24 children on the holiday who turned out to be very nice and on the whole very well behaved. To help me look after them I had an assistant director, 4 monitors (who each had a group of 6 children), a matron, a caterer and 4 general assistants. Each day had different activities.
Day1 included codebreaking and semaphore flag making, Day 2 fingerprinting and disguise making, Day 3 was a day trip to Ludlow castle but the children also had to perform a black market nuclear weapons bust (seriously!), Day 4 blood spatter analysis and a crime scene investigation, Day 5 featured ninja lunch and walkie talkie activites, Day 6 had a graduation ceremony but before that could take place the children had to defuse a time bomb, rescue the ninja and deal justice to some North Korean rappers up to no good.
Throughout the week strange characters came and went and the children became involved with helping a ninja defeat the one armed evil twin of my assistant director who was working for the North Koreans. As I've mentioned already, the children went undercover and bought nuclear weapons to keep them out of dangerous hands. They ate ninja lunch. They uncovered the truth about the evil twin by investigating a crime scene recreation. The graduation ceremony was interupted by a smartie time bomb crisis which was eventually resolved and ended in the evil twin becoming good and the North Korean rappers who had tricked her dealt justice by being thrown into a swimming pool.
It was great fun planning and came together well in the execution. I was lucky that I had a great staff team and everyone really got into the spy activities. As the week has finished all aspects of the spy school are now declassified and I can show you the following pictures.

Mount Ontake

The hiking season in Japan is in full swing. I climbed the 3067 metre Mount Ontake near Kiso Fukushima. Considered sacred by the Japanese; it is a popular pilgrimmage. I saw many Japanese people dressed in white and chanting on the way up. It is also the final resting place for hundreds of thousands of people; lower down the mountain is covered with graves. All of which added a certain somber atmosphere to my hike. Nonetheless, it was a very enjoyable hike and surprisingly easy for all of its height. Near the top there is still snow and indeed a snow lake (pictured). Aparently the lake is the highest in Japan. It is an active volcano though it hasn't erupted recently so at the summit there was smoke and the smell of eggs.
For more about hiking in Japan check out my friends website, Japan Hiking.

鎌田小のアイドル犬 「ポチ」が天国へ旅立つ Kamada Elementary School Idol Dog "Pochi" goes to Heaven.

From the Matsumoto Shimin Times, Tuesday June 30th 2009

"松 本市の鎌田小学校（田辺邦夫校長、８３１人）で１７年間、児童と教職員に育てられてきた犬の「ポチ」がこのほど病気で息を引き取り、７月１日に児童会が 「お別れ会」を開く。「学校のアイドルで、先輩のような存在」（６年生）だったポチがいなくなり、児童たちの間に悲しみが広がっている。"

Matsumoto city Kamada Elementary School (Principal Kunio Tanabe, 831 pupils) staff and students for 17 years kept and raised a dog called "Pochi". She died on last friday at school of respiritory failure. On the 1st of July a rememberance service will be held. "She was the school idol, we all looked up to her" A sixth grade student said. A great sadness was felt widely amongst the students upon news of her death.

My amateur translation. I visit Kamada Elementary School as part of my job and had met Pochi many times. She was blind, couldn't walk well and her 17 years had been tough on her but she was a nice animal. She was taken in with two siblings after they were abandoned 17 years ago in the neighbourhood and whilst her brother and sister found a new home noone wanted Pochi so the school raised her. My family once had a cat called Elgar with a very similar biography. She died the same day as Michael Jackson and whilst I'll miss both of them and the death of the "King of Pop" will have a wider resonance only one of those got covered in the Matsumoto Shimin Times.

Running

Regular readers may recall I ran the Tokyo marathon two years ago and I swore afterwards I would never run one again. It has taken a while but the I have the running bug again. I entered two races in the past few months and got some decent times.
In the Golden week holidays in May I entered the Shinshuu Nakagawa half marathon. Nakagawa is a tiny village literally meaning "in the river" and it is mainly rice fields sitting in the middle of a river surrounded by the Japanese alps. The views were amazing. I was the only non-Japanese competitor. I ran the 21.0975km in 1 hr 48 mins 21 seconds and came about 100th out of 800 runners. The villagers were very friendly and I got some free farm produce as a prize for finishing.
Last weekend (21st June 2009) I ran the Norikura Sky marathon with my friend Gary. Again we were the only non-Japanese competitors. It is a marathon up Mount Norikura on the Ecoline road which is the highest public road in Japan and closed for most of the year due to snow. The day of the race it was pouring with rain so they reduced the course length from 30km to 23km. The course started at the Norikura visitors centre by the ski resort at 1500 metres altitude and went up for 15km to an altitude of 2700km. Towards the top there is still snow left over from the winter and it was amazing view. The last 8km you turn round and go downhill back the same way. The views of the snow corridor, the mountain scenary and waterfulls full to bursting in the rain were breathtaking and the race was tough but intense. I exceded my expecations and ran in 2 hrs 29 mins 59 seconds to finish 392nd out of 1150 runners and ahead of Gary. I think I might enter a full marathon again.....

Birthday Karaoke!

I turned 28 this month. I had a birthday party and 17 friends were kind enough to come and help me celebrate. We ate, we drank, we sang karaoke!