Yesterday, I ran my 4th half-marathon event for this year. This one was up in Yamanashi Prefecture, famous for it's countless steep hills peppered with grape vineyards. This race was very challenging, maybe not as much as the Hi-Matsuri run, but tough nonetheless. The first half of the run consisted of endless steep inclines, snaking their way up the hills, culminating in a turn-around point 800 meters above the starting point. My reaction about 15 minutes into the race was - "Motherfucker! What have I gotten myself into!" - but as I began to catch my breath and work into a nice pace, it actually became fairly enjoyable. On the downhill portion (i.e. the second half of the run), I felt relieved and almost ecstatic as the endorphins were really kicking in. The weather was pleasant, with temperature in the low 80s and long periods of cloud cover keeping most of the intense sunlight at bay. My overall time was 1:48 (and some seconds) - almost the identical amount of time I took at Hi-Matsuri. This was Akemi's first official road race; she ran the 10K and finished smashingly at 1:00:01 (one hour and one second that is!). The end prize for finishing this time was a big box of Kyoho grapes - they're big, sweet, purple grapes, almost like Concorde's. That's really unique because at most races they just give away a t-shirt. The only drawback to the whole event was the bus ride, which took about 3 hours going up and about 5 and a half ass-burning hours returning - due mostly to the fact that the day after (Monday) was a Japanese holiday and also there had been a landslide in Hakone due to recent heavy rains shutting down part of the highway for several hours. Incidentally, we'll do three more road races before we leave Japan. Like a dumbass, I forgot to bring our camera this time, so below is a graphic illustration courtesy of Akemi to commemorate the event. Just do!!
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