Kyoto Tamba 5K Road Race

The Kyoto Tamba 5K was part of a running festival with a range of racing distances on offer from 3K up to half-marathon. Being my first race in Japan, I was unsure of what to expect. As the runners lined up before the race, I had my first chance to look at the competition. There were around 200 runners in this race, with most people having opted for the half. As I looked ahead from the start line, I could see that the first 100 metres was straight up a hill which I couldn’t see beyond, so I decided to take the first stretch at an easy pace.

 

Predictably perhaps, many runners surged ahead and sprinted up the first climb after the starting gun was fired. By the time I crested the hill, some of the early enthusiasts were already fading back. I glanced around and saw a leading group of three men to my left beginning to break away from the main field, so I put in a little surge to latch on to the back of the group as we rounded a bend to exit the park. There followed a half-mile of steady descent towards the local town, during which I drew up alongside the lad in third place who was wearing a white vest and would go on to win the race.

 

We then ran through a 600M stretch of the town along a traffic-free side road. People stood in the entrances of shops and apartment blocks and applauded us as we sped along and I tried to stay in contact with the leading group. After about 2KM, the road turned up a 400M sharp climb, during which the leading pack of three men left me behind. The road soon levelled out again and a man in a red vest, who’d been leading the race from the gun until this point, had also been dropped from the front pack, with white vest taking the lead. The positions remained unchanged until the finish.

 

As I approached the running track and finishing area, I could see that red vest was coming back towards me, so was pleased that I had something to keep focussed on and worked to try and close the gap. Entering the track about 30 metres behind red vest, I knew that I’d  have to pull something spectacular out of the bag to get past him, but it wasn’t to be. I finished in 4^th place, in a time of 17:22. This is exactly the same time I finished my last race, the Sunderland 5K, in July. It might be a while before I can run sub-17 mins again, but I’ve got several more races lined up over the next few months which I’m really looking forward to, especially after today’s first foray into racing in Japan.