Shonan International Marathon (2022)
Shonan International Marathon (2022)
Race report 4
The Shonan International Marathon is a yearly event in Kanagawa, Japan. This is essentially my local city marathon. I originally put up this race report on another website I have but I’m sharing it here on Substack to keep all my race reports in one place and also to remind myself of the procedure (since I’m entering the 2023 marathon as well).
About the Shonan International Marathon
The Shonan International Marathon is an event that first took place in 2007. It starts at the Oiso Prince Hotel in Oiso and follows the Route 134 highway down to Enoshima (a popular tourist hotspot). There is then a turnaround point and the course heads back to the Prince Hotel. I included a map of the course (only available in Japanese). It’s a very straight, very flat course which is quite good for first time marathon runners.
The race organizer put together a video where they drove through the entirety of the course. I embedded that video below.
The Shonan International Marathon prides itself on being an eco-marathon. They don’t give out paper cups at aid stations and instead insist that runners carry reusable cups and bottles. In recent iterations of the marathon, water stations are set up every 200 meters so you can refill your bottle, but the nature of these things means it will cost you a bit of time every time you want a drink unless you are carrying sufficient water with you. I actually received an email after the event thanking me for taking part in the world’s first “My bottle” marathon so I was happy to be part of this experimental race. (“My bottle” is Japanese English. In this case it means that it’s the first marathon to use a system of refillable bottles. But that’s more difficult to say).
The race was canceled during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic so 2022 was the first time the race had been held since 2019.
Entries for the full marathon were capped at 20,500 participants. The results of the 2022 event reported a total of 16,963 people running the full marathon with 16,107 finishers.
17th Shonan International Marathon (4 December 2022)
Race morning
I received an email before the race saying I needed to arrive at Oiso station by 7:10 because it may take a long time to get to the start line from the station. I set my alarm for 5:20 but woke up at 5:00 to get a head start on the day.
Once at Oiso there was a long line for the shuttle bus, but they were coming every few minutes so that wasn’t an issue. A 15 minute ride later and I arrived at the starting area. The view of Mt Fuji was really stunning which is one of the main things I was hoping for on that day.
The Race
There were six blocks of people doing the full marathon (block A-F). I was in block C. Since there were more than 16,000 people in this race I’m guessing there were a few thousand people ahead of me in the A and B blocks with even more after that. Once we got the go ahead to move into the starting area it was a bit of a free for all. I just went along with the crowd but I noticed people in the blocks behind me moving as far to the front of the pack as possible. That isn’t anything I really knew about at this point but I know if I’m to enter this race again that I should do that.
Note: For the 2023 race I’m in the A block.
I don’t really recall much of a signal to start the race other than a brief announcement and a cheer from the crowd. Everyone clapped and started slowly jogging towards the start line so it was a bit of a rolling start. I snapped a picture as I was jogging along gently before the start then got into more serious run mode as we approached the start line. There was a sensor mat on the ground at the start line so I set my watch as soon as I crossed that point.
The marathon started off a lot slower than I would have liked. I was hoping to start running at a 4:30/ km pace but the crowd was too densely packed to get past anyone to any real degree. For the first kilometer I was running at 5:42/ km (which was one of my slowest times of the whole race) but the time gradually started going down as the crowd started thinning out a little at kilometer four. Running at such a steady pace at the start may have been a good warm up and may have been what I needed to conserve energy later but also it may have just brought down my average pace. I know now that I should have moved up a bit more at the start.
The first aid station was at 10.8km. I ran past it, grabbed a small donut, unwrapped it, ate it, then threw the packet away. That process took about 3 seconds. I then grabbed a bag of raisins before the end of the aid station opened it and ate the raisins casually as I ran along. It was at that point that I noticed something a bit awkward about this. After you passed an aid station there was nowhere to throw anything away until the next aid station. The second aid station was at 14.2km so I just ate my raisins and held the packet until the second station. There was however a problem at this one.
The second aid station had chocolate and raisins so I planned to do what I did at the first aid station. I threw the raisin pack away, grabbed some chocolate, unwrapped it, put the chocolate in my mouth and then realized I’d picked up a peanut chocolate. At this point I believed I had a mild allergy to peanuts so I spat it into the next bin then veered off the course to wash my mouth out. Thankfully there was a restroom at this aid station so I washed my mouth properly, ate another bag of raisins that I picked up, and threw the pack away before I left and then carried on. This cost me a bit of time.
Note: After the race I had a check up and found my peanut allergy has more or less disappeared.
With my hands free I was able to interact with the spectators a bit more as I was running along. I was running along quite happily and noticing a lot of spectators in inflatable dinosaur costumes. There are a lot of dinosaur events in Fujisawa and they always show up to cheer on runners. After passing a lot of these dinosaurs and other spectators I noticed I was coming up to an area where a friend of mine said he would be. I hit the bridge and saw my friend with a flag shouting, “ANTHONY!!!!” All I could really answer with was, “YOOOOOOOOO!” at that point but I think the message was put across that I was happy to see him.
At this point I was at the main strip in Fujisawa with a great view of Enoshima which is the main tourist area in town. This was also the first turnaround point of the run but not quite the half way point. There was an aid station at 19.2km with energy gels. I did a full stop at this station, slurped a gel as quickly as I could and threw away the pack before carrying on. These gel packs can be awkward to open and I was concerned about losing the top of the pack. Minor time loss here.
I carried on running through town and saw my friend at the bridge again. Another “YOOOOOOOOO!” and I knew I was leaving the densely populated spectators again and was getting back to the highway. The rest of the run was done heading towards Mt Fuji so there were some amazing views to take in. I couldn’t help but step off the course for a while to snap a picture (which cost a bit of time but was totally worth it).
It was around this time that I started to feel a bit of discomfort in my left hamstring. I’d already passed the halfway point and it wasn’t debilitating so I just decided to ignore it for the most part and carry on. That was a sign that I probably needed to take in more water though. I started drinking more often and filling my bottle at the water stations (remember that they were set up every 200 meters). This again was a time drain but one that I deemed necessary. I did see the occasional person filling their hat with water then slapping it back on their heads. It was clearly getting hotter.
At 23.9km I passed another aid station that had a Japanese sweet called uirou, which is a kind of jelly like snack. I actually got really angry with this thing because it was so difficult to open that I needed to stop to figure it out. And it wasn’t even that good. I had also passed the bin and needed to carry the packet as I ran along, awkwardly trying to bite out pieces of gelatin from the plastic wrap. Another lesson learned. Don’t try anything new on race day.
Between this aid station and the next aid station things were relatively uneventful but things were starting to get a bit more painful. Along the course there were spectators that all seemed to agree to play the Rocky soundtrack at various intervals to keep people going. Not just the Rocky soundtrack, but specifically Rocky’s montage music, Gonna Fly Now. I’m not sure if it was coincidence or not but that was awesome and I’m pretty sure my speed increased a bit whenever I passed these guys.
The next aid station at 28.3km gave out bananas. I threw away the uirou packet, picked up the banana but for some reason I ran further than I expected and realized that I’d passed my opportunity to throw the peel away by running past the aid station.
So…running along with my unpeeled banana, and seeing other people running along with unpeeled bananas and nowhere to throw the peels away, a hilarious but frightening thought crossed my mind…”I’ve played enough Mario Kart to know where this is going.” I ate the banana then kept the peel in my hand hoping that no one in front of me dropped their peel.
This part of the race could have been an absolute disaster but thankfully, people in Japan are responsible enough not to drop banana peels or throw turtle shells at each other during a real life race so I kept on going without injury. Thankfully some good citizen who wasn’t at an aid station had a trash bag at the side of the road so I responsibly got rid of the peel and carried on.
I’ve heard a lot of stories about the 30km mark of a marathon. This point is the time when energy reserves start to drop and many people start to break down. Although I’ve felt that myself I’ve never seen it on a large scale due to me entering smaller races. It turned out to be no joke because around this point I started seeing a lot of runners turn into walkers and some walkers turn into people hugging the guard rails at the side of the road. I even saw a few people being attended to by paramedics and one guy being taken away in a wheelchair. This was still not too many hours from the beginning of the race so this war zone was clearly full of good runners that had gone way too hard at the start. Hopefully most of these guys were able to clear the final 12km becase it would be a shame to stop there.
The next aid station was at 33.9km and contained an interesting collection of Japanese confectionary. After my previous experience with Japanese sweet wrappers I decided to just ignore that aid station and instead focus on water stations from then on. At this point my pace was slowing down but I didn’t think that taking in more calories would make much of a big difference at this point so water was my go to strategy.
One of the cruel designs of this race is that once you get to roughly the 36km point of the race you can see the finish line. But you know you still have quite a way to go. You have to run further down the highway to another turnaround point, then run back the way you came on the other side of the road to get to the finish line. I felt like I was slowing down here and I saw a lot of people who had just given up on running and were walking to the finish. Again it was shame for these guys because they had clearly started strong and were walking the final stretch. I wanted to make sure I finished strong.
The turnaround point was at 39.6km and there was a marker at 40km. I started running quicker at the turnaround point and then faster again after I crossed the 40km line. Just after the 40km line one of the guys I do parkruns with was walking to the finish line, yelled out my name and snapped a few pictures on my way past. I felt really energized at this point and just shouted some words of encouragement to hopefully get him running again but by that point I was passing everyone and wanted to keep my rhythm going.
Just before the finish line (in another cruel design of the course) there is a bit of a steep hill (which some people were almost crawling up) but there were a lot of people cheering here so it was an awesome final part to the course. Some people were really sprinting towards the end.
I crossed the finish line and stopped my watch. Some photographers took some pictures as I crossed the finish line and I stopped my watch after calming down a bit. I started to exit the finishing area and I was handed a paper mask (which I was supposed to put on immediately…because Japan) and then a race medal. I replaced the paper mask with my sports mask then went back to take a selfie with the finish line (I took the mask off for that). I knew that I’d beaten my marathon PB (at the time) and I had a great run so I really wanted get a picture to represent a race goal a friend of mine taught me. 「笑顔で完走」(Egao de kansou; finish (the run) with a smile).
It turns out that my friend who took the earlier pictures managed to catch up to me after and we crossed the finish line more or less at the same time. Because of this weird twist of fate the race pictures that were taken had both of us in as we approached the finish line. Which is awesome.
Final results
How I did depends on how you are measuring this (as with all races). From the time I started my watch to the time I stopped my watch I did 42.52 km in 3:34:29. I checked Strava after and it said I completed a marathon distance in 3:31:53 but there is a Shonan International Marathon segment on Strava which I completed in 3:33:35. The general race results were released and on the results sheet my chip time was 3:33:38 (which makes Strava very accurate for that segment). I came in 1219th place out of 11281 people in the men’s division which puts me in the top 10.8%. I am very happy with that result. I also picked up my very first race medal (pictured below):
Below is the online certificate I received:
Lessons learned
This race had a few important lessons for me. The first was not eating items from aid stations if I don’t know what they are (that’s doing stuff on race day I didn’t do in training). I also need to get ahead of people if I want to go faster (I was in the top 11% despite being stuck in the crowd at the start). Finally, I shouldn’t carry stuff I don’t need. I carried a full 750 ml water bottle with me for the whole trip. It was easier to fill my small bottle than it was to access my hard bottle while running so I should use that hard bottle only when I’m doing races that are less focused on the clock. That bottle served me well in my ultra last year but it was dead weight this time.
Final thoughts
The Shonan International Marathon is an amazing event. I am really happy I chose this as my first really big event to take part in. I had a decent PB time to beat for my overall marathon time (which I crushed at the Yokohama Marathon in 2023), and my Shonan International Marathon time, which I hope to beat in 2023.
The next Shonan International Marathon will be held on December 3rd, 2023. My aim for that marathon (beyond finishing with a smile) is to get a personal best on my Shonan time. 頑張ります (I’ll do my best).
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Osu!
Anthony