Kansai Masters Ekiden Championships

The 2015 Kansai Masters Ekiden Championship was held in Wakayama Prefecture last weekend. There were several relay races, for different age groups and genders, plus an open relay. Kyoto Prefecture were the reigning champions and had to hand back the winner’s trophy during the opening ceremony. I’d been called up to join the Kyoto team and hoped that we could win it back!

Kyoto Masters Team

The first race was an over 35 years of age men’s relay. I’m only a few months shy of my 35^th birthday so had to sit this one out. I watched the first leg runners get off to a breezy start on the track with the lead runner clocking 72 secs for the first 400m and 3:01 for 1000m.

The first Ekiden race gets underway

The only race I was eligible to run in was the open race. The first section was 3.1km, followed by three 2.4km sections. On the Kyoto team bus to Wakayama in the morning of the race, I was informed by the team manager that he wanted me to run section one AND section four, as he wanted to pull out due to an injury he’d picked up the week before whilst acting as an official pacer for the Kyoto Marathon. I can’t say that I was thrilled by the prospect of running twice, as I didn’t want to overdo it and get injured, but concealed my misgivings.

Ganbare (do you best) Kyoto!

At 1:10pm I lined up with the other open section runners for what was to be the second race of the day. After only 50m I realized that the pace wasn’t going to be fast so I took the lead. The first 700m was on the track before the course left the stadium and wound its way through a car park, onto a short section of cycle path, down a side street, with the last 300m back on the track. As I ran through the car park I knew I had a healthy lead as I couldn’t hear any other runners steps, but I didn’t want to relax too much at this stage as I wanted to give the other two runners in my team a good lead, as after all, I was going to have to run again for the last section and wanted to have as easy a run as possible the second time around.

Changeover at the end of the first leg

It was a warm day, though with a gusty wind, as the stadium was very close to the coast. Near the end of the first section I eased off the pace a little, wanting to save something for my second run. On the last bend of the track I lifted the team tasuki (sash) over my shoulders and then held it out for the next runner in my team at the changeover point, where a crowd was gathered. After handing it over, I looked around and could see that our team had about 250m lead over the second team.  My time was 10:13, which was a decent enough pace, being about 3:18 per km.

Results from the first leg of the open race

I took it easy whilst the second leg runner was out, but was a little surprised to see her return in second place, about 80 metres down on the lead runner. Once our third team runner was out, I started doing a few easy striders to get ready for my next outing, having changed vests to show my fourth leg number. I got a lot of amused comments from other runners when they realised that I was going out again! As our third section runner entered the stadium I jogged over to the changeover line, and could see that he had also lost one place, leaving me to pick up the tasuki (sash) in third place. Any thoughts of taking this second run easy were displaced when I sensed that victory was possibly if I worked hard. After about 300m I caught the second placed runner as we entered the car park. The lead runner had a much bigger lead, and I didn’t catch up with her until half-way around the course on the cycle path. It was nice to win the race and break the finishing tape to gain valuable points for our team. My time was 8:11 for the 2.4km, so a slightly slower pace than for the first section.

Results from the last leg of the open race

Sadly, Kyoto came last out of the six Kansai prefectures this year. Osaka won overall on points. On the bus back to Kyoto I asked the team manager why we’d done so badly, and he explained that he couldn’t get a full team together to enter into the women’s race, so we’d missed out on loads of points – scoring zero in that event. He also said that he wanted me to run in the over 35 men’s race next year. I will, but only for one leg next time!