Tokyo Marathon, Take 2

“Never tell me the odds!”
--Han Solo, The Empire Strikes Back

The Tokyo Marathon is an incredibly popular event. This year, 294,469 people applied to run the full marathon. 32,000 were accepted. And I was one of them!

This will be my second time to enter the marathon. The first time was in 2007, at the first Tokyo marathon. I had signed up for it in the summer of 2006, when I was doing relatively well, and running relatively often. But as the winter of 2006 came, I gradually fell into the first of my three major bouts of depression. Among other things, this pretty much stopped any exercising.

By the time the marathon came around in March 2007, I was very out of shape, and still very depressed. But I couldn’t bear to give up. So I went ahead and ran the race anyway. The first ten kilometers were okay. The next ten were increasingly difficult and painful. And the last twenty were hell. Actually, I walked the second half of the race, and took six and a half hours to finish. Even walking was incredibly painful. But I ran the last few hundred meters to the finish line. I was in agony for weeks afterwards, but I finished it.

I had no interest in ever doing a marathon again. But this year I started running again, and gradually I have been getting fitter. I am still out of shape, but I am gradually getting better. This week I ran 15 kilometers for the first time since that day back in March 2007. Slowly but surely, my body is getting in shape. It is not all improvement – yesterday I went for a run and felt I had to stop after 4 kilometers. I still have a lot to learn about fitness, about my body and how to treat it well. But I’m getting there.

I have no intentions of repeating the self-imposed death march that was the 2007 marathon. I am running two or three times a week, and gradually extending my distances. I am trying to eat well and will also be doing a number of shorter races in the next few months to build up my stamina.

I completed the 2007 marathon, but I still feel I was defeated by it. In 2010 I want to make a success of the race. It will be hard, it will be painful. But I want to be able to run it at my pace, and run the whole way, not have to drag myself across the finish line. I’d like to finish it in 5 hours. And I’d like to finish it with a smile on my face!

Slow and steady

The other night I went out for a run. It was a hot Summer evening, about 29 degrees Celsius (84 Fahrenheit). The humidity was high, but there was a slight breeze, so it was not too bad. In any case, things always seem better when I am on my way to go running.

I have been running on and off for about six or seven years. I have never been particularly religious about it, and have had long periods where I slacked off and didn’t exercise at all. These have often been followed, new-years resolution style, with periods of increased, unsustainable, and probably harmful exercise. Which leads back into inactivity. I know that running is probably not the greatest form of exercise. It can be solitary, it can be hard on the body. But I’m always drawn back to it. And at the end of the day you have to do what you love.

Generally I tend to go at things like a bull at a gate, which frequently ends badly. The same is true for running, I usually start quickly, which is sometimes okay, and sometimes not. But this night I decided to take some advice I’d received about starting out very slow.

It felt good. My legs gradually got used to the run, and despite going slower than usual, I was still running faster than most of the other joggers I encountered. Our bodies are designed to move, and there is nothing quite like running.

I didn’t push myself, I just listened to my body and enjoyed the run. I felt my feet hitting the ground, felt my posture straighten, felt myself breathing in and out. I heard the cicadas in the trees, felt the breeze running through my hair, and felt the relief as I sweated all the stress and toxins out of my body. I felt alive.

When I reached the end of my run I stretched, and sat to enjoy the moment. I have so many things that I should be grateful for, but instead I usually wind up feeling inadequate, like I just don’t measure up. So I push myself more and more, until I fall in a heap, physically or mentally.

But I think I am done with those days now. I am myself, for better or worse, and I will never be anyone else. All the self-loathing, all the “should haves”, all the pushing myself to breaking point hasn’t helped. Slow and steady may not win the race, but it can make the difference between getting to the finish line or falling by the wayside. Slow, and steady. And never give up.