Kiryu Hori Marathon

this is a bit late, but...
On Sunday, February 11th, I participated in my second community "marathon" event--and much like the school marathon, this one was definitely not 26.2 miles... more like 6.25.

The "HoriMara" has been held on the 2nd Sunday in February for the past 53 years. It's a huge community event that involves students, families and serious runners from all over Gunma Prefecture and the surrounding areas (but as far as I can tell, most of the nearly 6,000 participants are students in the city schools). The morning begins with 3 separate groups of "family" 2km participants--mostly groups of parents and small children from local nursery schools and kindergartens-- who parade through the main streets of Kiryu with unfathomable amounts of energy and enthusiasm. Around this time, the half-marathoners begin their 13 mile run through the city toward Mt. Umeda... where the halfway point is the top of the mountain (absolute insanity). Throughout the morning there are a long series of races: 3km elementary school, 4km jr. high girls, 5km jr. high boys, 5km high school girls, 5km adults, 10km high school boys and 10km adults. Needless to say, anyone not participating in the day's event (or hiding from the winter wind in the comfort of their living room) have to figure out how to drive through Kiryu when the main road running N-S through the city center is completely closed off for nearly 5 hours.

I wandered over to the starting point at Shinkawa Park about an hour before my race began and spent the morning chatting and taking pictures with the track and volleyball teams from my junior high school. Even though we'd talked about it in school, my students were amazed to see me actually show up to the race... maybe they thought I was only joking??
Around 10am I lined up with nearly 900 other people (only 46 women!!) to run the 10km... I'd never run more than about 5miles and was incredibly nervous--and ran a little bit too slowly at the start--but finished in 1hour 3minutes. When I came around the corner to run past the park to the finish line, my elementary and jr. high school students had lined up along the road and were cheering/running along the sidewalk with me for the last 2-300meters... they're so cute!

Anyone who's known me for a while knows that I've never been particularly excited about running, so entering a race like this was a bit out of character for me, but I'm so glad that I did. Taking part in these community events, seeing my students and their families, and doing something with them outside of school, is what makes me feel like I'm living in Japan rather than just working here.