Ekiden Results

I didn't run in the marathon relay, but I was support for the girl who ran our section of the course. I couldn't believe how fast some of the runners on the other teams were! Taki came in 21st place over all (out of 29 teams), and 9th out of 14 towns in the town division. It took us about 2:41 to complete the marathon, which was 5 minutes faster than last year. This got us a prize for 3rd most improved team, so at least we didn't walk away empty handed! After the race we went for all-you-can-eat yakiniku (table-top bbq) with Matsusaka beef. Yum! The whole day was great, BUT I'm glad it's over! I feel inspired to work on my speed, so maybe with enough training I'll feel ready for something like this in a year's time, but I'm not signing up again unless I am significantly faster. Too much stress for a slow-poke like me!

Marathon Relay Update

It looks like I might not be running in the race afterall. Previously I had thought that the runners and back-up runners were already decided, but I was wrong. On Wednesday, we had time trials to decide the final team roster. Of course, the other girl in my division (a high school girl who ran track in junior high), was faster than me, so I'm out. I could have another chance to beat her time on the 4k course on Saturday, but there was a difference of about 2 minutes, and I know I can't close the gap enough to make it worth risking injury. So, I'm not going to bother. Besides, I can use Saturday for my long run, which I otherwise would've had to do tonight, on tired legs. I'm so relieved. I'd much rather cheer my team on than have all that pressure of being fast. The marathon next month is more important to me anyway, and it was getting way too tough to train for both. There is still a chance that the girl running my section will get sick or injured or something, but (knock on wood) I should get to be a cheerleader on the day of the race. Go Taki!!

Umashikuni Mie-ken Inter-city Marathon Relay: Mie's fastest runners... and me

I'm still not really sure how this happened, but somehow I ended up on the Taki-town team in an upcoming inter-city, prefecture-wide marathon relay. It's on Sunday, February 22. It seems that Taki had trouble finding enough elite female runners to fill their team, and someone had seen me "running" around town and started asking about me. Turns out the manager of the team is a teacher at my school, so he asked me to join the team as a favour to him. When I agreed, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I went to the orientation meeting and met my teammates. It's a really cool idea. Each team has 20 members (a runner and an alternate for each of the 10 legs of the race), and each leg is run by a different age group. There are elementary students, junior high students, high school students, over 20, over 40, etc. I'm in the general female category, and I'm running the 7th leg (2.89 km). After the meeting, we had our first practice. We just jogged for 40 minutes, and while their "jogging" was more like a quick run for me, I kept up with them.

At the 2nd practice, we were meant to run for an hour on a course that included stairs. I kept up for the first 30 minutes or so, and then dropped back. During this practice, I also pulled a quad during sprints at the end.

After a couple days of icing and massage, my leg felt ok, so I went to the next practice. This time we were supposed to start with 5min/km and gradually increase our speed. For an hour. I'm slow, and training for a marathon, so until these practices, my pace was more like 6:30/km, and my fastest 5k race pace was 5:50/km, so while I can run 5:00/km for a short while, I can't hold it for an hour, and I certainly can't get faster AND hold it for an hour. I only made it about 15 minutes till my quad started to hurt again. I ended up walking most of that practice (my coach taught me how to speed walk- apparently he is Mie's record holder for speed walking!).
This was also the practice during which a local cable TV company came to interview us (including me) and record us training. (It aired last night.)
Also, since I'm the only foreigner in the whole race, the newspaper interviewed me this week for a profile that'll come out the day before the race.

I haven't been able to go to the last couple practices, but I've been training on my own. I know I'll be much slower than the 9minutes they expect/hope me to run it in, but that's what they get for not making me try out for the team! (Everyone else was selected based on times from a race in January that I didn't run.)
Follow the link below to see my team's picture and uniform.

http://mierk.jp/pref_ekiden/2009/team/56.pdf

Wish me luck!!