Tokyo Marathon 2011

Last year we entered the lottery for the Tokyo Marathon. There is only a one in ten chance of getting an entry which is decided by lottery although we have since heard rumours that if you enter from abroad you are guaranteed an entry as it is good for tourism!

The result of the lottery was entry for Sasha (sister with foreign address) and an entry for me on the second round of draws. Unfortunately no entry for Julie.

Training consisted mostly of slogging round and round the Imperial Palace. This is the only place in Tokyo where you can run for 3 miles without being stopped by traffic lights. It's also on my way home from work and close to where Felix plays rugby so very convenient for me.

Training was going really well until I over did it and injured my knee. Two weeks rest advised by the sports physio and a quick dose of treatment to try and speed recovery. After two weeks I started running short distances again and then we went snow boarding for the week! Fortunately by the time Sunday morning came around my knee was feeling pretty good.

The marathon takes place around the center of Tokyo and is really well supported by the crowds. There are 35,000 entrants and, get this, over 10,000 volunteers to make things run smoothly. That's one person to every three runners. I just read on the internet that this is one of the best organised marathons in the world. It was certainly well run and I couldn't fault the organisers for anything.

The race starts at 0910 from the Tokyo Metropolitain building in Shinjuku. Sasha and I arrived at 0800. First stop was the toilets as early morning hydration plan meant that we were busting. Next we had to deliver our special kits bags to the lorries parked down the side streets. Once loaded the lorries take everyones kit to the finish. It was then time to take another pee. This time the queues had grown considerably so we were amongst a small minority that decided it was acceptable to pee in the bushes. Then it was time to push our way through to the start pens before they closed at 0845. We were in a pen E which was only a short way from the start line. Maybe 200m.

Weather was perfect, started cool rising to maybe 15C by end of race. Sun was out (managed to get a sun tan) and just a very light wind. The course is also very flat.

After a lot of speeches and a ticker tape explosion, the gun sounded and the runners started to move forward. It took us four minutes to get to the start line which I think is pretty good by big marathon standards. For the first few kilometers it was very crowded with lots of slow people that had clearly lied through their teeth about their expected finish times in order to get a position in one of the first pens.

After about 10km the field had opened out and you could run at a steady pace without anyone getting in the way. This was also the last point at which we saw the leaders of the race. The route brought them back past the outgoing runners at this point.

There were amazing amounts of drink and food stations. Every 2km there was water and energy drink. With banana's, raisins, bread etc being given out in the second half of the race.

I managed to run a steady pace to about 32km and then it started to get hard. Legs were beginning to get very tired and didn't want to go fast any more. Last 5 km were really tough with body saying it wanted to stop and mind not allowing it to. I think this was same for most people around me. Finally crossed the finish line to be greeted by army of volunteers removing chips from shoes and handing out medals, towels, oranges, bananas, soy bars, water and energy drinks. You collect your bag from a big hall and then go to an area to get changed. All very slick.

The final times (chip time not gun  time) were;

3:34 Ross
3:56 Sasha

We were both very pleased with our times. After a quick pizza from a camper van at the end we headed for home.

Sasha and medal

Ross and medal

Both of us. These pictures were all taken at the end

Very tasty pizza from VW van

Not many pictures of the race as we had no camera with us, however if you want to see what the course looks like follow the link. The footage was filmed 2 years ago from the camera bike leading the way.

http://www.tokyo42195.org/movie.html

The race photos are now available. Follow link

http://tm11eng.allsports.jp/event/00055397.html

Enter password 2011

Enter race number 29238 for Ross
Or
Enter race number 50883 for Sasha

Not sure how long they will be displayed for. The cost id nearly £80 for the set. I decided to give them a miss

Five Fingers

The day before the marathon we needed to go to the Tokyo Big Sight to register for the race and collect our race numbers, baggage stowage sack etc...

The Tokyo Big Sight is a bit like Earls Court and is used for lots of big shows. As part of the Marathon they were having a Marathon Expo. After we had picked up our race packs we went to have a look around the expo. The kids enjoyed it because there was lots of freebies they could pick up.

One of the stands was being run by an Englishman from the New Forest who was the Japanese agent for Vibram FiveFinger shoes. These are thin soled running shoes with a seperate pockets for each toe. There has been a lot of interest in these shoes in the media recently including a book called Born to Run. The theory is that man was designed to run barefooted. When you run bare footed you run on your toes with a very different running style. Once you put normal trainers on then you loose all the feeling in your feet and start landing your heel first.  This then leads to more injury. Apparently there is no evidence that all these fancy trainers manufactured by Nike etc.. reduce injuries. In fact there are tribesmen who can run all day barefoot and never get injury. These shoes are supposed to simulate running barefooted

Anyway in order to find out if this is true or not Sasha and I decided to buy a pair each. We also saw the guy who sold us the shoes lining up for the marathon the next day in his five finger shoes. They obviously work for him. What was very funny about his shoes were that he had only 4 toes (two of his toes were fused together from birth) he therefore has to modify his shoes to fit his feet. I guess he has the only Vibram Four Fingers in the world.

I will report back after I have used them.

Weird Feet!

Skiing in Hakuba

The kids broke up from school on 18th Feb which gave us one week to go on family skiing holiday. I arrived back from business trip to Israel on the 19th along with Sasha. We had met up as I passed through Heathrow so were on the same flight back to Tokyo.

Saturday was spent getting ski kit together and recovering from jetlag. We got up early on the Sunday morning and set off for the drive to Hakuba. This is where we went in the summer only this time we were returning for the snow.

We were meeting up with 4 other families from the BST so in total we were 22 people including 11 kids, 9 of whom were boys. I am not sure the hotel knew what hit them especially as Japanese kids are rarely seen out. In fact most of the kids we met during the week seemed to be other children from the BST. Small world.

We were staying in the hotel Shinya which is inexpensive ryoken (hotel) in Happo. Hakuba has 7 ski resorts all within a few miles of each. Happo is probably the biggest of them. The hotel had mixture of Tatami(Bamboo mats)and western rooms. It also had Onsen in the basement (Japanese bath) We all soon discovered this was best option as the showers in the room only seemed to do cold water. 1st night boys started big water fight in Onsen but fortunately no other guests were in at the time.

The hotel served evening meals but most of the kids don't like Japanese food so we ate out each night. Plenty of places serving pizza, mexican etc...

We arrived in the resort before midday on Sunday and managed to hit the slopes by 1300. For four days we had brilliant sunshine. On the 5th day it was cloudy and the snow was very sticky so not quite so good. On the final day it was raining. We had only planned to ski in the morning so we gave this a miss and went to see the snow monkeys (see photos)

We then headed back to Tokyo for quitet evening in before Sasha and I started to prepare for the marathon

This is the view from the very top of Happo

Boys table at dinner

Girls table at dinner, much more sophisticated

....maybe not

Adults table at dinner. Sit with the kids, not us

Julie and Sasha looking glamourous at the lift station

Even more glamourous

Handsome snowboarder dude

View from the main gondala or gondora in Japanese

One afternoon I took the bigger boys skiing to the snowparks with camera stuffed in my coat. Prizes were awarded for biggest air and most massive wipeout. All prizes would be forfeighted for anyone who injured themselves and left me to explain to their parents





This is Felix's friend Flynn

Cool dude?

We found some bigger jumps. My advice to boys was take it easy until you get used to the sixe and speed of the jumps. Felix was obviously not listening at this point

Touch down

still going

really still going

And again

Wipeout!

This is at Tsugaike resort

We are heading for the black run with moguls....

We did it twice

On our way to find the monkeys

On the way to see the monkeys Felix found half buried pick up truck

 The snow monkeys live up in the hills at night but during the day they come down the springs where they get fed and can take a bath in the hot spring. There are about 150 of them in the group and they are very famous in Japan. There are pictures in most of the guidebooks. Apparently this is the only palce in the world where monkeys take a hot bath!

Monkeys in the hot springs.

We wanted to see what happened when they got out of the bath. Eventually one of the monkeys got out and wandered off.

Trip to Israel

As part of my job I work very closely with our factory in Israel. I have never visited this factory and after some recent technical issues we decided it was time for me and the technical team at IMJ to visit.

The journey from Japan is very long as you have to fly via a European hub. I decided to make the most of this by going via London and having a weekend in UK before going to Israel (see separate blog)

The factory we were visiting is just North of Tel Aviv in a place called Yavne. We were staying in Tel Aviv in a hotel right next to the beach. The weather was also excellent with temperatures around 20C.

View from my hotel room

This is in front of the factory. They had run up the Japanese flag especially for our visit

Factory Reception

On the last day we finshed at lunchtime and my Japanese team needed to head for the airport for their flight back. My flight was not until the next day so Fred, my contact at the Israeli factory, had arranged for Jacob, their friendly tour guide, to take me on a tour of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is about 1.5 hours drive away.

We drove around the outside of the old town and then we went on a walking tour of the major sites within the walled city. I have to confess to being very ignorant of the religeous stuff in Jerusalem, perhaps I should have paid more attention in RE at school. Anyway is was very interesting to see all these famous places. Often the churches were full of highly religeous people who had clearly made some sort of pilgrimage to come to the holiest places in the world as opposed to me who was wandering around as part of business trip taking snapshots.

Any way here's the pics....

This was given to Israel by British government in 1956

It is covered in scenes from bible

Israel Parliament

This graveyeard in Jerusalem that was used to bury all the famous people. In the background is the Garden of Gethsemane where Judas kissed Jesus

Dead centre of Jerusalem

More graves

In the background if the Valley of Hell. Our neighbour in Japan used to live near here

In the top left you can just see the massive wall the Israelis have built to keep the Palestinian suicide bombers out

This looking into the desert, east of Jerusalem. This is where the settlements that are often talked about in the news are.

We went to this very quiet part of a church to see the tomb of David. I had to put a skull cap on to get in and there was hardly anyone there. It was not the most well presented tomb

This is the room of the last supper. There were a whole bunch of people singing hyms in here!

Nice |Church

More nice church

This is one of the gates in the city wall. It was scene of massive gun battle and is full of bullet holes

Below street level they have excavated lots of old ruins that in the past they have just built over the top of

Ruins of old street that was excavated

This painting shows how the street used to look in the old days. Spot the odd one out

Very holy spot. This is the hill upon which Jesus was crucified. It is now built into a cluster of Churches that are over the top of the hill. Lots of religeous types at this point who tried to 'shsss' my guide. He was not impressed. Very funny

This is the stone that Jesus was laid out on when he died. If you wanted you could drapse yourself across this stone and do some wailing

This was a little tomb place that Jesus's body was stolen from. I think the guy standing outside may have been the devil

This is West Wall where all the hasidic jews hang out. It has a womens side and mens side. This is the mens side. I had to put a skull cap on to get in here. Above the wall was where the church used to be until it was destroyed. The holiest of the holy's were stored in the part of the church directly above the wall. You can write down your wishes on a piece of paper and place it in the wall

West Wall

This is the inner sanctum of the west wall. It seems you can spend all day in hear reading holy scripts and praying. This is also where they perform the Bar Mitzva ceremonies. Women are not allowed in here but they can watch from behind mirrorred windows on the balcony.

Sunset on the buildings that face the west wall. Buildings cannot be built from anything other than Jerusalem stone which keeps the city looking really good.

Sunset over the hills

This is a replica of one of the holiest  of the holys that used to be kept in  the church above the West Wall

Another Church