37th UP RUN Shinyokohama Tsurumi River Marathon Event - First Marathon (29 Apr 2021)
37th UP RUN Shinyokohama Tsurumi River Marathon Event - First Marathon (29 Apr 2021)
Race Report 1
第37回UP RUN新横浜鶴見川マラソン大会 (37th UP RUN Shinyokohama Tsurumi River Marathon)
I started running in August 2020. I was reasonably fit due to my martial arts experience but I didn’t have any running experience at all. With the pandemic in full swing and my dojo closed I needed a new form of exercise to keep me in shape. To cut a long story short I started running.
I ended up getting quite into running and my milage started climbing month by month. By December 2020 I was running 300 km months and I wanted to challenge myself by entering a race. I wasn’t aware of the complexities of booking running events in Japan at the time (in general if you want to enter a large race you need to book it months in advance) but I had it in my head that I really wanted to run a marathon.
Japan never had any lockdowns, but there were a lot of event cancelations and closure of public facilities at the time. At the beginning of April 2021, COVID cases started increasing and I had a feeling things were going to start shutting down again. I didn’t know how long it would last so I just found a local marathon (第37回UP RUN新横浜鶴見川マラソン大会 (37th UP RUN Shinyokohama Tsurumi River Marathon)) that was open for entry and signed up so I could get running a marathon out of my system while I had the chance. I booked the event and I literally only had two weeks to prepare, but it was on.
I previously published versions of this race report elsewhere. I am very fond of Substack now so I’d like to start migrating my work over here. This article will be a rewrite and update of the previous version.
Race Preparation
So, I spent two weeks mentally preparing and imagining all the things that could go wrong. Something I never thought of before entering this race was how to drink from a cup while running. The best advice I got on hydration was from a video that suggested squeezing the top of the paper cups to make a spout to drink from while moving. This prevents you from throwing the water directly at your face.
I deemed it important to know the course and where the aid stations were so I checked the event website. The course for this event was along the Tsurumi River in Yokohama. The course began with a 2.195 km loop (to get the awkward numbers out of the way) followed by 4 laps of a 10km loop. This was a very logical set up. Once you got past that first little loop it was a quarter of the remaining distance per loop.
I planned to wear my usual training gear (standard tracksuit with a running pack), but because it was raining on the day I added a raincoat. In hindsight this was probably not the best idea. My raincoat is a decent Gortex model and is not something I wanted to push safety pins through. I ended up holding my race number using the loops on my running pack thinking it would be fine. I also needed to wear a mask during the race because we were in the middle of the pandemic. I bought a sports mask and did a few training runs with it on and found it didn’t really impact my breathing.
Race day
On race day I turned up and checked in with 27 other runners. This was clearly a small, local event, but it was an official marathon so that was good enough for me. I dumped my bag and did my final preparations, making sure all my gear was ready. We then took a picture and lined up at the start.
We set off at 9:30 in the morning and everything felt fine. I planned to just go and run my own race without worrying what other people were doing. I was told by a friend of mine to keep up with my hydration so I made sure to grab a cup of sports drink at every aid station I passed. Everything was progressing smoothly until I started getting a pain in my knee at about the 10 km mark.
When I started running in 2020 year I got taken out for a while due to some pain on the outside of my right knee. When this pain started up I was able to run a short distance before the pain forced me into walking for a while. I’d wait for the pain to go away then start running again until it came back, which forced me into doing a lot of run/walk training. The distance before this pain started up gradually increased over time and eventually just disappeared. But before this race I had never run beyond a half marathon so there was a chance the pain would come back and force me into this run/walk cycle. (I was really jumping in at the deep end).
The pain I felt at the 10 km mark may not have been exactly the same as the pain that was slowing me own before. Whether it was all in my head or not I don't know, but I just kept running and ignoring it as much as possible. It came and went. I just made sure not to stop in case it decided to get worse.
I had a few energy gels with me and I took one after each 10km. As I previously mentioned the course was made up of four loops so it made the timing easy to understand. I heard a lot about people hitting a "wall" at around the 30 km point, which is apparently where many people find their glycogen stores depleted. There wasn’t really a single point where I felt like I hit a wall, but I felt like the air around me (especially my legs) felt denser and denser as I ran. I felt like I could keep going, but I just felt slower.
During the race I didn’t stop at all. I knew that if I stopped I might not be able to start up again, so I just kept powering on. My raincoat was a bit hot so I regretted wearing it. The rain kept starting and stopping so it wasn’t a whole lot of use anyway. My number ripped during the third lap so I needed to try to reattach it as I kept running. That wasn’t ideal.
When I crossed the finish line I allowed myself to stop right next to a volunteer who was offering me a cup of orange juice while my race certificate was being printed. That was the best cup of orange juice I’d ever had. As I stopped I could feel my momentum suddenly grind to a halt and my legs didn't know what to do with themselves. I was still but it felt like my momentum was still going forward. I was quite unsteady but I managed to hobble over to the side of the course and have one of the officials take a picture of me with my race certificate in hand.
My official completion time was 3:37:08. I heard that a sub-4 hour marathon was quite good so I aimed to get anything under 4 hours. I was absolutely thrilled with the results (I also came in 10th overall, which was an added bonus), but my legs weren’t happy with me as I limped back to the train station. (It took me about a week to be able to walk properly again).
There were some pretty serious people in the race at some quite different extremes. I saw two guys racing towards the finish on their 4th lap as I was just entering my 3rd. These rail thin dudes must have run sub-3 hour marathons. This was my first exposure to anyone running that fast so I was very impressed.
Another extreme I saw was a guy doing a shorter race (half marathon I think) who looked to be very heavy. He must have weighed over 100kg. I think I passed him about 4 times but whenever I saw him he was always moving. I have a huge amount of respect for people doing that sort of thing.
Final thoughts
My main passion in my life has always been martial arts. That being said, in martial arts the best training you can do necessitates an opponent or partner. You can punch air/a bag or practice kata and you'll get a decent workout but you don't gain practical experience unless you are training with someone else. Running isn't really like that. Running can be a completely individual pursuit.
Before I ran the race I had seen pictures and videos of marathon events with thousands of competitors, but because there were so few people in this event, about 10 minutes into race I found myself running completely alone (only seeing people running the opposite direction). The only opponent I had was the distance that needed to be covered. There is something honest about that. It’s just you and the distance that needs to be covered. No one to stop you or help you but yourself.
I learned a lot in my first 42.195km. After completing this race I now had some benchmark numbers. 3:37:08 was the time to beat moving forward.
Not bad for a first try.
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Osu!
Anthony