Itabashi Riverside Half Marathon

On Sunday Yoshi, Erena and I all trouped down to a park by the river where they held a 5k and a half marathon.  The 5k people went first while all the people planning to do the half lined up at the porta-potties.  I heard there were around 5000 participants, about 500 of which were women.  When we all lined up for the start it was just a seething mass of humanity.  I use zombies run! a lot when I jog so it wasn't much of a leap for me to start imagining a shambling hoard of zombies in our midst.

I was worried for a few minutes before the race started because I didn't see many ipods.  I thought 'oh no Japanese people actually take that rule seriously' but as the minutes ticked away till the start everyone started pulling out their earbuds and finding their playlists so I went ahead and pulled mine out as well.  

There were signs for what time you expected to finish in and it was left to the honor system for you to line up with your sign.  I expected to be 2 hours of above so I was at the back of the pack, which meant when the gun went off we didn't even move for a minute or so, then at a walking pace, then slowly we started running. We circled a full race track and went a little further to the start line so actually those of us at the back did an extra half kilometer, and I found at the end our time started at the gun not when we passed the start line.  

I ran pretty slow compared to most people for the first couple kilometers and was near the back of the pack at our first turn around.  Then for the next 10 kilometers after that I steadily passed people after which point I guess everyone had settled into their places and nobody passed anyone anymore.  It was a beautiful quiet path and I liked my music so I felt quite good for the first 13 or so kilometers, which was where the second turn around was, and then my legs started to slowly get heavy, by around 16 I had a cramp in my foot and by 17 I wanted to go home.  At the beginning the k markers would just tick by but around 17 I started to wonder if the signs had been taken down or something it took so long to see the next one.  But I kept on running and running and running.  I saw my friends waiting for me about 50 yards from the finish line and ended pretty strong.  My time was 2 hours and 38 minute, though because of the issue at the beginning I think it was really closer to two and a half.  I finished 212 our of my gender/age class in which there were 330 people.  I also saw a good number of men finish behind me.  Not to mention my friends saw bus loads of people who had given up along the way riding back to the park.  Multiple bus loads.  So I'm pretty proud of how I did.  I did the whole thing without stopping once.  Next time I do a half I'd like to get my time a lot closer to 2 hours though.