Kawaguchiko Round the Lake Race

The start of winter for me over the past few years has started with a visit to Kawaguchiko  and the round the lake running race, or for those who insist two laps and full marathon. This year was the 35th event, and its certainly as popular as ever - the race filled almost immediately after internet applications opened back in August. After that, the accommodation fills up just as fast when people realise they have a spot for the race. Theres only a limited number of hotels around the lake, and all within walking distance of the start/finish charge 2-3 times the normal rate.
The first time I visited the lake we hired a car, then I suffered food poisoning and couldnt run and we were stuck in traffic the whole journey home. After that, we travelled by coach with the same problem on the run home, the next year we took the train which of course had no delays but was relatively expensive and took a long time.
So this year would be different, partly as Satoko had decided not to run due to little training. I couldnt be bothered with hiring a car, or being stuck in traffic in a bus again, so it had to be cycle out and back. The weather was looking good, so the grand duathlon challenge was on.
I took the opportunity to ride westwards along route 35, which is an excellent road running parallel and between the bumpy route 20 to the north and the mountainous Doshi michi to the south. 35 is a great road, wide, perfect condition and very little traffic. The one main climb up to the tunnel is extremely gentle, then theres a nice descent down to the Otsuki/Fujiyoshida road. After the distance, the climb up to Fujiyoshida seemed much longer and steeper than 35, and certainly wasnt as pleasant due to the heavier traffic.
Felt good to arrive at the registration, get my number then grab some yaki soba at a restaurant with a great view over the lake.

I'd arranged over a few emails to stay with Mike (Namban newbie) and his friends in Pension Woodstock to the north west side of the lake. They'd arrive by car and train but I couldnt wait around in the cold and arrived at the pension first. Not much to do out here, I tried all the settings on the massage chair before they arrived. Once they arrived, we went out in search of food and found a nice place a short drive away to put away a few unagi don and a few beers.  The game of cards was cut short by the pension owner at 10, very useful as it would be an early start for the race.

5am wake, eat my bento then Mike, Rory and Pete left in the car in search of a car park near the start. As I was on my bike I had the luxury of staying in the warmth as long as possible. I definitely recommend this option, staying several km from the start then rolling in on a bike. Saves a lot of money.

The start of this race has a tight bottleneck between the main start and the larger car parking area. If you're ahead of this bottleneck, you'll be running in no time, but behind this mark will take half an hour to cross the start line. This is the only weak point of the race organization, its impossible for people to line up in expected finish order as there is no space either side of the lining up area. So with this in mind I squeezed in by clambering over the small fence in the middle of the bottleneck, so I could get a speedy start.

7:30 start, and into the first 2km my legs were feeling tire. I was worried at this point, this could be a very long day after my cycle out the previous day. So I made sure to take a power gel early, after about 7km.  I dont normally take these for a run, but as this weekend was a bit more than the average run, I planned to take a couple during the run to keep me going.

The run is fantastic on a good day like this. First you head up directly towards Mount Fuji up a wide dual carriageway before heading back down to the lake. This section is really just about making up the distance. Once by the lake, its either one or two laps of a very flat course. Mount Fuji is visible from about 80% of the course, and the autumn colours of the maple trees here are later than in previous years as its been so warm lately. Before I knew it, the half marathon was up, then there was just another 6km for me to the finish. I said hello to Anthony and Brian from Namban Rengo, they were both doing the full marathon so good luck to them.

So I finished in 2hr 5min, this was a complete surprise as its 10 mins faster than Ive done in previous years, was the ride out a good warmup, or was it the power gels that carried me the distance? Maybe the half marathons Ive done through the summer have helped as well.
I took full advantage of the early finish, and took a bath on the top floor of one of those souvenir shops by the finish. All these shops seem to have a souvenir floor, food floor, general space then a floor with a bath! So no need to stay in an expensive hotel with an onsen, however nice it is. Today was about having a decent bath then getting some dry clothes on before the ride home. Binned my running gear here, that would save me a fair amount of weight.

After a ride up to Fujiyoshida, past the Torii entrance to the Fuji shrines and round the back of Fuji highland, theres a steady climb up to Yamanakako for the final majestic views of Fuji san for the day. After that, the short climb then the long, long descent of Doshi michi all the way home. Cant beat this road when homeward bound, especially with a tail wind.

In summary, this weekend was similar to similar to the sea to summit adventure, yet seemed altogether more civilized and comfortable. Still,  240km of cycling, 27km running for the weekend, will be nice to take a rest in the office on Monday.

Kamakura Trail Run with Namban Rengo

When organising a trail run, its unlikely you would take into account the location of the US president, or the ministers and leaders of any country for that matter. But even with the APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation) in town, we hadn't figured this would affect our run around the hills surrounding the historic and beautiful town of Kamakura.
The first hindrance was the lack of lockers at the train station, none available for security reasons. Lockers were removed long ago in the UK and US, for fear of bombs being planted etc but they're so useful when you're in a new town, for all kinds of travellers. Instead we had to plead with the restaurant owner to the west of the station to leave our bags with them, we'd be eating there later so a safe choice.
After that the APEC leaders decided to delay our run further by blocking the main road up to Tsuruhachimangu shrine. Before they could pass, the police had closed the roads to all traffic. Large crowds of people were standing along the road waiting to see who or what would pass by, was it Obama? Lots of excitement but in the end the 3 white buses with some bureaucrats waving out the rear window was quite an anticlimax, and an added delay to the start of our run.

Heading out east from the main temple, Tsuruhachimangu, to Zuisenji, then the start of the Tenen hiking trail. The trail is steep in places, a lot of the climbing is at walking pace and certainly where there are steps. But most of it is in dense vegetation so it very quickly feels like you're in a deep forest, even though you're obviously only minutes away from a large city.

I've walked this course before on a day with clearer skies when you can see across the ocean to Mount Fuji, but even today its really nice to be able to stop at the several viewpoints and admire the scenery. Lots of other running groups out today, but Namban Rengo have the largest group, 15 rengo out in force.

The tenen trail ends (or starts) at Kenchoji temple, and if you run east to west then this means you get into the temple grounds for free, which we felt was paid for by the hard effort we had put in to get this far. The group split in half here, one group heading back to the station for a 10km run, the other half crossing the road and heading northwards to pick up the Daibutsu trail for a km or so. We dropped down to Zeniarai Benten shrine for a habitual stop. This temple has a small cave at the rear of the ground where people wash money (coins and notes) in the spring water. By doing this, the money is said to pay back more than its face value, so a real bargain if it comes true.
The Daibutsu trail leads of course to the famous big buddha of Kamakura, but the feeling in the group at this stage was to head to the coast and away from the tiring ups and downs of the trails. After the delayed start, it was clear we would not get back to the restaurant for the booked time if we stuck to the hills.
The sea looked so inviting, and Peter took the plunge whilst we continued towards Enoshima and back, Jay wouldn't be happy if we had covered less than 20km for the day.


After a quick sento which was too hot to be relaxing, but at least we were clean, we met the others in the okinomiyaki restaurant. Most of us were pretty tired by this stage, so when faced with do-it-yourself meal we could easily have sat back and let some enthusiastic person do the cooking. Instead, it was left to me to cook and order some food, which was quite a disaster as the other table seemed to have a mountain of food, whilst we had a few strips of meat and some bean sprouts. And with Kylie being a vegetarian, she even couldnt eat the vegetarian omelette after someone sprinkled the dried bonito fish flakes over them. But at least the beers were flowing and it was all good fun.

On leaving the restaurant John was missing his shoes! Never heard of this before in all the places over the years Ive been in Japan, that someone has taken, by accident or otherwise, a pair of shoes from the entrance to a building. The restaurant offered a pair of slippers, several sizes too small, but a spare pair of running shoes was supplied by Peter for the journey home. I wonder if the shoes will one day be returned to their rightful owner, as often happens in this country?

Thanks Jay for orgainising this trail run, it was a great day out with the Namban Rengo running club.