Kannabe Marathon

The Sunday after our return from Shikoku was the Kannabe Marathon. Gotta love the Japanese definition of marathon- any organized run longer than 50 m. Hooray! This made our team, the Tajima United, marathon runners despite the 5 K distance.

So it was up at the horrible hour of 5:30. Ugh. Ate breakfast, then Gregory and Jamila picked us up at 6:30. Made it up to the Tajima Dome to register by 8. Met up with the rest of the team- Grayson, Luke, Tsukasa, and Tsukasa's friend, whose name I can't recall... We pinned our numbers on, stretched a bit, and looked at some of our competitors. Um, wow. There were tons of folks in their "Golden Years"-- I was not looking forward to being whooped by 80 year olds. There were also a couple crazies dressed in animal suits- a cow and a tiger. Looked fun, but far too hot.

And all too soon it was time to go. The course was really tough, with long, sharp inclines, and balancing that out- long, sharp declines. I discovered that I absolutely hate distance markers, as discovering I'd only gone 2 K instead of the 4 I thought was pretty heartbreaking.

But we managed to finish. Aaron had the respectable time of 32:32, while I brought up the rear with 36:24. Not horrible, but it should be easy to improve on that with a flat course.