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.

It's so windy that...

...we looked out the staffroom window to see that my bike had not only been blown over, but was launched about 15 feet into the parking lot. Naturally, this was the start of a conversation about whether or not I should park my bike at an alternate angle on windy days (parallel to the bike rack, rather than perpendicular to it) and general agreement that from this point on, no one intended to park anywhere near the bike rack.

...we looked out the (other) staffroom window to see that our dirt patch of an athletic field has risen up with all the swirling fury of a desert sandstorm. The field is only about 100meters deep, but at times the dust was so dense that we couldn't see across the school grounds. There was a bit of oooh-ing and aaaah-ing as we all stood at the window, then someone had the sense to run downstairs and turn on the sprinklers... and the fun was over.

Yay for the strong winds that Gunma is famous for (along with silk, cabbage and a million other "famous" local specialties).

ski trip!

Although it's been ridiculously warm in Japan this year (almost no snow in "snow country," prefectures being forced to cancel their Snow Festivals and daily news reports about the panic over pre-mature flower blossoming), I've had no reason to complain. Spending my life on a bike or in my uninsulated apartment has given me a special appreciation for mild winters.... but the opportunity to go skiing aroused my first pangs of concern--had global warming ruined my ski season??
Thankfully, not. In fact, it was one of the best ski trips I can remember... no wind, temperatures in the 30ºs, sunny, with fresh snow. The worst part was that my hands were hot and I had to go through the trouble of taking my mittens off every time we got on the lift or I would have sweat to death... tragic stuff, right? To make my story even sadder, my ski pass was free! (and the lovely people at the rental shop let me switch to skis when it was revealed that snowboarding was simply NOT going to work out for me)
...try to resist. (^-^)

In other news, I'll be running in my city's "marathon" this weekend. Much like my junior high school's marathon, it's not a marathon at all, but rather a series of long distance runs (2, 3, 4, 5, 10 or 20km). It's a huge city-wide event and almost all of the athletic teams from elementary school through high school participate, not to mention the nursery schools and people from all of the local businesses... 5,795 participants this year! I'll be one of 46 women (there are 346 men) running the 10k on Sunday morning. As you might imagine, I'm terrified, especially since all my talk of warm weather is certain to jinx me and I'll find myself running uphill, against the wind, in the snow... wish me luck!!