Kawasaki Monthly Marathon

The Tamagawa river is a great place to run in Tokyo, away from the traffic and road junctions. Just miles and miles of track from almost Haneda airport up to Fuchu. On the last Sunday of each month, the Tamagawa running club hold a very well organised running meet. Its on the Kanagawa side of the river between Gasubashi and Route 1 bridge, the start and finish is on a cinder running track. There are 3 events 3km, 5km and 10km (and a 1km childrens race at 9.15!) starting from 9.30am November-March, an hour earlier April-October. The first time you join, the cost is 1300yen and after that you just pay 1000yen. You receive 2 cotton race numbers, to keep and bring to future races and the new required item is a barcode so that they can quickly record finishing order after the race.

Despite living close by and wanting to join more of these events, I've only managed to attend one of these events in the past year due to other commitments. It was back in July when the heat and humidity had already risen to uncomfortable levels - and for that reason, the 10km event was cancelled on that Sunday as it was in August and September, again due to the heat. I remember the agony of doing the 3km, then struggling in the 5km event wanting it to finish and drink as much water as possible.

This morning the conditions were much more favourable for running, clear skies, temperature between 2-4 degrees. The sun was shining making it feel warm, but running into the northerly wind meant hat and gloves had to be worn. On the return leg, heading south, the hat and gloves came off.

This morning I had the intention of running the 10km event as part of a longer training run in preparation for the Tokyo marathon which is only 4 weeks away now. I ran down to the track and registered, still thinking it wouldn't be long till the 10km start, and I could do some more warm up jogging until the start. It was nearly 9.30, but the 10km wasn't until 10.30, so too long to warm up what else to do but join in the 3km, and the 5km events in the meantime?

I made an easy pace for the 3km as I didn't want to be standing around too long for the next event, then the 5km was another slower than normal pace in preparation for the 10km. They allow all the 5km runners to finish before the start of the final race, so it was around 10.34 before the track was clear and we could get into the main event. Similar numbers of people for each race (about 250?) but most people are here to focus on one of the distances. Not sure how many do all 3, my guess would be about half.

Happy to record 42m 54s, then run back home via route 1 bridge. In the end I think this odd interval training of 5-3-5-10-7 worked out well I was on my feet for 3hrs 20mins and many people say time on the feet is great preparation for a marathon. Doing these intervals made the morning interesting as well, no need to carry an ipod to numb the boredom of a multi hour training run. Hope I can build on this in the next 2 weeks with long weekend training runs.