It’s been five weeks since I wrecked my body at the Kakegawa Marathon. The first couple of weeks after that were quite painful and I wasn’t able to do very much at all in terms of exercise. Since the beginning of May, I’ve managed to start running again and am making steady progress towards my next big event, the Mount Norikura Heavenly Marathon on the weekend of June 22/23.

Running Smarter

I do have a tendency to overdo things and I’m sure that’s why I’ve been struggling with injuries for the better part of a year. Right now, I’m still dealing with Achilles tendonitis and 2nd metatarsal syndrome. Neither injury is keeping me from working out, but they are taking an awful long time to go away. That’s why I’ve started to train more sensibly:

• I’m running three times a week and not on consecutive days;
• I’m warming up with Radio Taiso and a 5 minute walk before I start running;
• I’m running by time, not distance, increasing by 10% each week;
• I’m wearing a heart rate monitor and running at around 140 beats per minute;
• That means I’m running really slowly, around 6:30/km pace;
• I’m only running hills once a week;
• I’ve been doing 10 minutes of daily workouts, targeting legs, glutes and abs;

But that’s not all!

On the four days a week that I’m not running, I’m cycling and swimming. With an Olympic-distance triathlon in July, I need to train for those as well. I’m swimming at least 1,000m twice a week and cycling around 50km a week. If I follow my homemade schedule, I’ll be doing more than what the triathlon requires by the time it comes around.

Looking ahead

To be honest, neither Mt. Norikura nor the Imizu Triathlon phase me very much. I don’t need to take either of them very seriously and can just enjoy each occasion. I am, however, a little anxious about two other events in August and September.

On August 30th, I’ve registered to run the 70K Utsukushigahara Trail Run in Nagano prefecture. I’m not altogether sure I’ll be ready for that, even if I approach it with a “go slow, have fun” attitude.

And then, just two weeks later, I’m heading back to the Izu peninsula to attempt a solo, do-it-yourself, full Ironman-distance triathlon. It will mark exactly one year since I last saw my best friend, Keith, before he passed away, and since he organized the half-Ironman I did there last year, I want to do this to honor his name. I’ll have the support of Shun, who I did last year’s half with, and maybe some other people down there will come out to cheer me on.

It will be a huge challenge to complete both those events, two weeks apart, without injuring myself. Still, that which does not kill us only makes us stronger.

This post is directed at members of the Gifu Runners Facebook Group, a group of runners living in or around the Gifu region of Japan.

There is a clear lack of full marathon options for us in Gifu. In fact, there are only two marathons that I know of: the hugely popular Ibigawa Marathon and the almost unheard of Kisogawa Marathon. Both events have their merits, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a third option? One that we can organize and run whenever we feel like it?

Here are some requirements I think are necessary if we were to set up our own marathon.

A Gifu Runners Marathon should…

1. be in Gifu (duh!)
2. have parking
3. have toilets
4. be on roads or paths with little traffic
5. have no roads that require waiting to cross
6. have a route that is easy to memorize without signs or map-checking
7. have opportunities to get aid
8. be flat enough to make personal records achievable
9. be accessible for all participants
10. be flexible in case of bad weather, road works, etc.

Gifu prefecture is a big place, and I can’t pretend to know of the perfect place to hold this kind of event, but I’d like to propose one route that I’ve traveled a few times. Here’s a map of the course with proposed start, finish, turnaround and aid markers:

View Gifu Runners Marathon in a larger map

Let me address the 10 points above.

1. The proposed Gifu Runners Marathon is in the heart of the prefecture, just north of Mino City. The Nagara River is well-known for its white-water rafting, and the mountains it runs through are simply beautiful.

2/3. The proposed course starts at the Shinbu Kominkan (新部公民館) bus stop. I assume there is parking and toilets there at the community center or at the shrine next to it. The course I’ve plotted is along the rather quiet Route 324. It’s 10.5km in length (for reasons explained later) and finishes at Minamikodakara Onsen, which I know for sure has parking and toilets.

4. The road is on the opposite side of the river to the main road (Route 156) and is only really used by cyclists, farmers and local residents. Obviously we would have to keep to the side of the road, but traffic shouldn’t be a problem.

5. Because there is nothing but mountains on one side of the road, the only roads that need crossing are narrow, country roads, like those you see between rice fields. I’d be surprised if you had to stop running.

6. The route is easy to memorize because it’s one road. If you stick to that road you can’t go wrong. Turn right or left and you’ll either run into the mountains or the river! The end of the 10.5km stretch is easy to recognize because it’s a hot spring with a big car park and even a train station.

7. Because we don’t have enough people to set up multiple aid stations, the course is kept short. A full marathon would be “there and back” twice. Ideally, three volunteers would be needed. One at the start, one in the middle and one at the end. That would enable aid and encouragement to be given every 5km. A rolling aid station in a support car or on a bike would be possible if we have only one or two volunteers. Also, because the course is divided into 10.5km sections, we can offer a 10K and half-marathon, too, if there’s interest.

8. The route is reasonably flat. Running upstream is a slight incline, approximately 30m over 10.5K, but the next 10.5K would obviously be running back downstream. There may be one noticeable hill, but it’s quite tame, perhaps only elevated an additional 30m itself.

9. The course is about 45 minutes drive from both Gifu City and Kani City. There is also a train from Minokamo and Seki, but it doesn’t run very frequently. By car, you can simply drive up Route 156 and turn off before the first tunnel. That turn off is our starting point.

10. I wouldn’t expect many of us to take part so changing the weekend because of bad weather, sickness, injury, or whatever shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Let me know your thoughts. If you would like to push ahead with this idea we can organize a time to go and check the course out.