Christmas Holidays 2013

Although Christmas is not a holiday period in Japan, I took a few days off work this week, partly so I could visit some of the 16 UNESCO World Heritage Buddhist temples and shrines for which Kyoto City is famous for. As a result, my body is far from being a temple this season. I kicked off the holiday period on Saturday by going to Toji Temple. On the 21^st of each month the temple grounds play host to a flea market, and the huge bustling crowds were less interested in the temple than they were in bargain hunting. By contrast, it was rather quiet and peaceful around the main landmark of Toji Temple, a five storied pagoda that, at 57 metres, is the tallest pagoda in Japan.

On Sunday I was invited to a Ramen food festival in the World Exposition 1970 Commemorative Park in Osaka. Ramen has a strong cult following, with guide books listing and ranking the best Ramen shops in each prefecture. It was no surprise to me therefore that thousands of people were prepared to queue for up to an hour at a time in freezing conditions to sample Ramen from across Japan at the festival. I made a mistake by hungrily devouring three bowls of different types of Ramen, which was probably one bowl too many, thereby feeling too unwell to make it out for a run when I eventually made it home.

Being a normal workday, shops, restaurants, buses, trains and offices are all open as usual on Christmas Day. Turkey is a real rarity in Japan, so much so that some of my work colleagues have said that they have never eaten it, and asked me to describe what it tastes like to them! I have a British friend, from my home town Warrington, who has been living in Kyoto City for over a decade, who invited me over for Christmas dinner on Monday 23^rd. He chose this date as his Japanese wife had to work on the 25^th. Luckily, she had been on a recent trip to the UK and had stocked up on festive delights such as Christmas pudding, gravy granules, cranberry sauce and stuffing mixture – all of which is almost impossible to get hold of in Japan. With great difficulty, they had also managed to get hold of a Turkey. So I had a great time eating a traditional Christmas dinner, washed down by a giant 3 litre bottle of red wine.

Unsurprisingly, things got off to a slow start on Christmas Eve, though I did manage to make it to a 2pm tour of the old Imperial Palace in Kyoto. This served as the main residence of Japan’s Emperor until 1868 when the Emperor and capital city of Japan relocated to Edo, which was subsequently renamed Tokyo – itself an anagram of Kyoto. After a stroll around the tranquil Imperial Gardens, I went to see Kinkakuji, otherwise known as the Golden Pavilion. This is the most well-known tourist attraction in Kyoto. I guessed, rightly as it turned out, that the immense crowds which it is also known for were likely to be absent on a late afternoon on a cold Christmas Eve. There is certainly something special and captivating at the sight of the three storied gold leaf temple building reflected on the shimmering pond that it stands on. Again, I took an unscheduled rest from running.

Christmas Day was spent at home. I read somewhere that tennis ace Andy Murray was not going to see any friends and family over the Christmas holidays as he planned to stick to his usual training. Such Zen like commitment over the festive period is admirable. Nagging doubts crept into my mind that my running training was not going according to plan due to the excesses of partying and visiting temples. Therefore, I forced myself to make an attempt at a session by heading out for 8 x 1K reps with short recovery internals, before spending the evening sampling a selection of Kyoto Real Ales. In addition, I ate a Strawberry and cream cake, which is traditionally eaten by Japanese people on Christmas Day.

Feeling refreshed, I went to Ryoanji Temple earlier today, site of Japan’s most famous rock garden. The garden consists of 15 rocks laid out on a rectangular plot, surrounded by a sea of white pebbles. There is a special viewing platform where you can sit and study the rocks. The meaning of the garden is unclear, though there are different theories as to what the rocks are meant to represent. It is said that from any vantage point at least one of the rocks is always hidden from the viewer. I overheard one American tourist loudly proclaiming, with a note of disappointment in his voice, that it wasn’t true that you couldn’t see all 15 rocks. He was certainly correct that, if you stood up on the viewing deck and looked at the garden from as far back as you could physically stand, it was possible to just about see all 15 rocks. Perhaps, therein is the meaning of the garden: that only by occasionally stepping back can you see the bigger picture.

Talking of which, when I made it home I reflected upon the fact that I really should try to be more consistent with my training. Consistency is the key to improvement, though a few days of taking it easy in order to enjoy living in the moment does more good than harm.

Hotsu River Charity Run 5KM

The northern bank of the Hotsu River in Kameoka town was the scene of some charity fundraising running action this morning. Having only done 2 races in 4 months, I leapt at the chance to test out how my training is going now that I’m on the comeback trail. My plan was to treat this as a ‘run through’: just stick to my regular training for this week, with no race taper, and do this short blast in lieu of a long Sunday run.

 

Looking around at the runners at the front of the field on the start line, I was a bit concerned to see dozens of pre-teen youngsters, until I realised that the 2.5K kids run and 5K were starting together. After a bit of weaving around flailing youngsters who’d started at a sprint, I felt pretty good to be out in the lead after 400M. Being a charity fun run, there was never going to be a strong running field. Most of the first mile was on a tarmac cycleway, before dropping onto a stone-gravel path around several rice paddies.

It was a two lap affair, so I got a good chance to look at some of the other runners on the second lap. I had a healthy lead, but I ran each mile slightly slower than the one previous. It would have been nice to have somebody to chase. Crossing the finishing line in 16:55, my Garmin watch told me that I’d only ran a shade over 3 miles, and not the full 5KM as advertised. Whatever the actual distance was, I felt good, and pleased that I’d ran fairly strongly – an indication that maybe I might be able to run a sub-17 mins 5K again one day.

 

One thing that I noticed during this race is that marshals and spectators shouted, “Fight-o!”, as I ran along. Japanese people often use the word “Ganbarimasu” when offering encouragement, which loosely means “Do your best”, “Struggle to overcome hardship”, or simply “Fight”! I’m used to people in the UK shouting “Go on!” and “Dig deep!”, but this is an interesting variant on the theme.

Kitakuwada Senior High School Marathon

Tradition holds that, in November of each year, senior high schools (for students aged 15-18) throughout Japan hold a marathon. Up until about 20 years ago, these races were the full 26.2 miles marathon distance. Nowadays, most schools have reduced the distance to somewhere in the region of 15-20KM, but kept the marathon title. All road races in Japan, no matter what the distance, seem to be called marathons.

I arrived at work on marathon day with an unusual spring in my step. A few weeks previously, I’d been told that I could run in the race, the only member of staff to be allowed to do so as the rest would have marshalling duties, but on the condition that I had to “try and win it”. This was a 20KM out and back, undulating road race through a rural valley lined with rice paddies. Every school student was expected to attempt the race, and given a target time to aim for. If a student failed to complete the race within the target time, they have to do the race again a few weeks later!

All of the students assembled on the baseball pitch to listen to a speech delivered by the school Principal, and then took part in some mass stretching exercises. At the appointed hour, all the male students gathered quietly on the start line for their 20KM effort. The female students stood or lounged around watching the spectacle, as they were to have a few moments reprieve before their 15KM effort kicked-off. As is my wont, I jogged over to the front of the start line with only a few minutes to spare. Most students hadn’t realised I was doing the race, and they gave me a spontaneous round of applause.

When the signal was given to start, the students surged forward, many sprinting at full tilt. After 400M we left the school grounds, and I saw one student pull over to the side, bent double and breathing heavily, paying the price for his early enthusiasm. I could see a lead pack of a dozen runners some way out in front of me, and I decided to work slowly at pulling them back, which I did just before the 1^st mile, which we went through in a breezy 5:45.

Settling into the middle of the leading pack, I counted 9 boys. This pack remained together for the next 3 miles, averaging 6:10 mile pace. Between the 5^th and 6^th miles, the pack began to break up, with a few boys drifting off the back. 4 boys stole away from the rest of the field as they increased the pace once they sighted the cone in the road that marked 10KM and the turnaround point. We began to pass runners who were on the other side of the road still on their way out, and several shouted and waved enthusiastically. Some students were seemingly astonished that I was with the leading pack, as several pointed at me and laughed as they shouted “Michael Sensei!”

At 7.5 miles we rounded a sharp, blind bend, and one student made a sudden break for it. By the time the road straightened, he already had a 20M lead. I decided to chase him down, and quickly caught him. By 8 miles, the boy in 2^nd place had caught us both. Sadly for him, he had clearly spent his reserves, and quickly fell back again, never to be seen again. Mr Y, the race leader, was clearly nervous being out in front by himself, as he kept on turning his head around to see what was going on behind him. He ran straight past the final drinks station at 15KM. I slowed for a quick drink and Mr Y opened up a gap, which he maintained till the finishing tape.

 

Turning into the final straight, I tried to look photogenic as I made a push for the finish area next to the school’s main entrance, and spotted the Principal stood just a few yards in front of the line. As I approached him, he stretched out a hand in the unmistakable international language of “high-5”, which I willingly obliged him with. I think we must have both had very broad grins on our faces as I crossed the finish line in 1 hour 18 mins.

Later, I congratulated Mr Y on his win. He asked me if I’d let him win. I told him that he’d won fair and square. Overall, I was very impressed with the enthusiasm with which the students approached the whole event. They seemed really cheerful and happy to participate in what was a tough race. There was a great atmosphere in the finish area as teachers served the students bowls of stew and they sat around on benches in front of the school for a well-earned rest. This was perhaps the best day’s work I’ve ever had.

Veteran

There comes a time for every runner when, due to advancing years, they leave their Senior Runner days behind and become a Veteran. In the UK, 40 years of age traditionally marks this watershed. So I was taken by surprise when I discovered that, at the tender age of 33, I’m considered to be a Veteran in Japan.

As I crossed the finishing line of the recent Kyoto Tamba 5KM Road Race in 4^th place, I’d naturally assumed that, being denied a podium position, any prizes or glory had escaped my grasp. I quickly got changed, did a few miles easy jogging, and headed home. Unbeknown to me, a prize ceremony took place whilst I was jogging around the woods close to the track stadium where the race had finished, and the prize for the 1^st Veteran finisher went unclaimed.

The results of the race were published in a local newspaper a couple of days later. I was stopped in the corridor at work by a fellow teacher who congratulated me and enquired as to what prize I’d received. I had no idea what they were talking about and told her that as the 4^th finisher, I hadn’t won anything. Later that day, a group of teachers, all of whom had also seen the said article, discussed the situation and explained to me that I’d won the Veteran aged 30-49 category of the race and was, therefore, eligible to claim a prize.

 

Phone calls were made and a teacher popped out of work on my behalf to the track stadium, and I was presented with my first ever prize as a Veteran Runner by the school Vice Principal, to the accompaniment of a round of applause from the staff still present in the teaching room after the days lessons had concluded. I got my first glimpse of the sort of prizes given out to runners in Japan The haul included a bottle of locally produced wine, a certificate, a trophy and 2 pens. Some runners don’t like being classified as a Veteran, with its connotations of sunsets and best years being behind you, but I’m not complaining.

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.

Fushimi Inari

In whichever direction I look, I seem to be surrounded by densely forested hills and mountains. I’ve been looking for a way to venture up into the hills since I arrived in Japan 3 months ago. I asked two different colleagues at work if there were walking paths into any of the nearby peaks, and they said that they didn’t know. Undeterred, I ordered the Lonely Planet’s Hiking in Japan guidebook. I figured that if there are local hikes, it must be possible to also run some of them as well, which would make for some interesting off-road long runs.

The first hike listed in the Kansai area is called Fushimi Inari. It starts at Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine, which is the most important of more than 30,000 such shrines in Japan that are dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of rice. There’s a cobbled street lined with shops, teahouses and food outlets just next to the shrine. A culinary speciality of the area is yakitori (grilled sparrow). Tradition holds that farmers considered sparrows a nuisance and would roast them as a warning to the ones still flying free. Sadly, there was no yakitori available when I paid a visit, so I had to settle for the nearest equivalent – grilled quail.

 

Fushimi Inari Taisha is best known for the more than 10,000 bright red torii (shrine gateways) in the forest behind the shrine.  It is possible, if you choose your route carefully through the maze of torii lined paths, to reach the summit of Inaria-san, from which you can view Kyoto City in the valley below. Most visitors only go as far as this, but it’s possible to drop off the summit into a valley to the north of the mountain. Following a stream through the forest leads you away from the torii and all the way to Tofuku-ji. This is the end point of the hike, which takes only a couple of hours. Tofuku-ji is one of the five great Zen temples of Kyoto, with three gardens that are worth seeing.

 

It’s not possible to do this hike as a run: the route is far too busy with tourists. So in this sense, the reconnaissance trip was a failure. Yet this day trip ranks as my best day in Japan so far. The walk is pleasantly relaxing, passing as it does through a beautiful forest covered mountain and is a chance to escape for a few hours from the hustle and bustle of Kyoto City. The torii lined path is an iconic image of Kyoto City, if not Japan. In any case, there are several other hikes in the Kansai area listed in the book that I intent to check out, some of which are in much more remote locations than Fushimi, and possibly even runnable.

 

Track Training

I had been hoping to find a tartan track in Japan that I could train on. The benefits of being able to train on a track are enormous, in terms of being able to build the speed-endurance needed to set new PBs (personal bests). For the last two months, I’ve been training on a cinder track about 1 mile away from my apartment. Although this has been useful, particularly as I've been building up my base level of fitness, it's not as good as training on tartan. The cinder track has become rutted in parts due to the typhoon that hit Kyoto Prefecture about a month ago. Also, it is difficult to run even splits as there are no track markings every 100M, like you have on a tartan track.

This week’s track session was a simple 4x1200M reps, with a few striders thrown in. I can’t get to the nearest tartan track during the week, mainly because it is locked up at around 5pm. So track sessions will have to be weekend affairs. Friday evening happened to be my first enkai (work party) in Japan. It was at a Korean restaurant close to Kyoto City. The atmosphere was a little stiff and formal at first. Once the beer started flowing, however, it became a very lively affair indeed. According to some of the travel guides to Japan that I read before I came out here in August, Japan is often seen as a rigid, formal society, with Japanese people being largely inscrutable. This is a picture of Japan that is unrecognisable after attending an enkai. My work colleagues were incredibly friendly, warm, entertaining and hospitable.

 

A track session on Saturday would have been more preferable, but after the excesses of the work enkai the night before, I was content with an easy day and an easy run. Heading to Kyoto Tamba for my first tartan track session this (Sunday) morning, I was a little apprehensive. I know I’ve gotten fitter and stronger over the last month or so, but I wasn’t sure of the level that I’d reached. I knew this session would reveal this and show what I can realistically aim for in my first race in Japan, which is in 3 weeks’ time.

The session started well. I was aiming for 80 seconds per 400M lap pace. I did this comfortably for the first rep. I failed to hit this target for the next three reps! This was an eye opener. It was hot and I finished the session dehydrated. However, I can’t blame the weather. I now know that I’m well short of the fitness standard that I thought I was at and I’m aiming for. Whilst this is useful to know, it means that I have months of slogging away to try and get back to the sort of standard where I can start aiming to beat my PBs. This is a bit daunting, but I’m undeterred. I’ll be back at the track next weekend.