I successfully completed my twenty-two mile run with the Premier Sports Marathoner in Training (MIT) group on Saturday. Unfortunately, everyone else I was running with only ran 14.5 miles, so I ended up running the last 7.5 miles by myself. My left ankle is still a little bit sore, which concerns me, although I don’t really feel it much when I’m running. I’m at the point now in my training when I start getting a little bit worried about all the things that could go wrong. I expect that this will be amplified this time around, since I’m travelling half-way around the world to run my marathon. The Tokyo Marathon will be very different than any race I’ve run before, so there’s a lot of uncertainty, but that also makes it exciting.

Tags: marathon, marathons, Tokyo Marathon, running

I ended up running only fifteen miles last Saturday, since my left ankle was a little bit sore, but that’s OK, because I probably needed a fall-back week anyway. (My shoulder was also a little bit sore from a fall on the ice a few weeks back, but a trip to the chiropractor seems to have fixed that.) Even though I felt good after the Mardi Gras Half Marathon in New Orleans, I worked pretty hard during that race, and I was probably a lot more tired than I felt. I definitely plan to run twenty-two miles this Saturday, and after that, I’ll just have a twenty-four mile run that I’ll do either the following Saturday or the week after that. Then it’s on to the Tokyo Marathon!

Tags: marathon, marathons, Tokyo Marathon, Mardi Gras Half Marathon, running

I’ve been brushing up on my Japanese a little bit in preparation for the Tokyo Marathon. When I was in Japan, I learned some Japanese by watching Japanese television. The most popular show back then was called Long Vacation. Click here to watch a video clip of the last part of the last episode.

In it, Sena, our young hero, has just won a Japanese piano competition and has earned the right to represent Japan in an international piano competition in Boston. He is going to ask his female roommate, Minami, to accompany him to Boston. Long Vacation was unusual because it’s very uncommon in Japan for a male and a female to be roommates, and not only that, but Sena was only twenty-four years old, while Minami was thirty-one. Enjoy!

Tags: marathon, marathons, Tokyo Marathon, running, Long Vacation

I recently finished the novel One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding, and I also just saw the movie Frost/Nixon. Frost/Nixon was pretty interesting, but perhaps it would have been even more so had I been old enough to remember the whole Watergate affair. In addition, I ran twenty miles today with the Premier Sports Marathoner in Training (MIT) group in preparation for the Tokyo Marathon. I have only two more really big runs planned (one at twenty-two miles and one at twenty-four miles), but I haven’t completely decided during which weeks I’ll do them yet. I might do the twenty-two miler next week, or I may do it the week after that. It depends on how I’m feeling next Saturday.

Tags: book, books, One Big Damn Puzzler, John Harding, Frost Nixon, marathon, marathons, Tokyo Marathon, running

Yesterday I finished the Mardi Gras Half Marathon in 1:32:59, which is a pace of about 7 minutes and 6 seconds per mile. That’s a pretty fast pace for me, so I’m happy with the results. This was only the second half marathon that I’ve ever run, and I like the distance. A full marathon really beats up your body, and you can’t run for days or even weeks afterwards, but after running the half marathon yesterday, I’m not even sore today. In fact, I plan to run later tonight. At the same time, unlike a 5K or a 10K, you can’t run a half-marathon without putting in some training. When my marathon days are done, I’ll probably retire to half marathons. In the meantime, I have the Tokyo Marathon to train for in March.

Tags: marathon, marathons, Tokyo Marathon, Mardi Gras Half Marathon, running