Friday, March 20, 2009

..to Tokyo

Sunday is the culmination of this winter's running. Tokyo has found itself as the season's priority race because Okinawa City suffered from January's knee problems. The circumstances are not set up well for running a PR (personal record) this weekend because I ran a hard marathon just four weeks ago, but that is my goal anyway. It shouldn't be possible with my training.


The weather looks good: 14C (57F) and a 60% chance of rain. I'm slightly concerned with how much time I'll have to wait outside prior to the race start, though.

I watched the sped-up video of the race course from the Tokyo Marathon website. The course appears to be full of turns and really flat. By lacking late-race landmarks like hills, it will be more difficult for me to break down the final 12k. Maybe this will toughen me up. Flat courses equal fast times for most people.

My body (joints excluded) is in good condition right now. I don't mean that I feel good (though I do, kinda), I mean that I look good. You may recall my 30th birthday post from last summer, which was made during my first week back training. My weight then was 83kg, now it is down to 80kg. My times on the 13k route were over 1:12 back in September, now they are regularly, without much effort, around 1:05.

It's nice to be in my best shape of the year, even if I know it'll go away soon enough.

I'll post the race report Monday night.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

dave are you doing any resistance training on top of this? i'm finding that my weight (not that i'm watching it) is really slow to budge. of course, i'm running shorter distances than you - but this sunday is a 12 mile run - can't wait.

kerign said...

Sounds like you're in great shape for the race, all things considered, so all the best! (And may it not be too humid, as it's been recently in Okinawa.)

Dave said...

Olga, I didn't do any resistance training, unless you count gravity on my big hills. I guess I'm not exactly sure what you mean - do you mean weights?
All I have done is run a lot.
And yeah, weight isn't the number to watch, body composition is. It's just a numbers game: burning the calories that you put in.

Kerri, thanks! The weather was great for marathoning, as I'll detail later on in the marathon post.