and tokyo makes 10

Locals may say otherwise but to an outsider Tokyo is all about organization and order, and when it comes to marathons the city does not disappoint. In fact, the only disappointing thing about the race was my left knee. And even that didn't stop me from finishing, although I'd give it credit for a damn solid effort.

Tokyo was a great place for a tenth marathon and felt suitably eventful. People kept asking me why I wasn't running the Seoul marathon instead of heading all the way over to Tokyo - but that was exactly the point. I wanted to go somewhere and make my tenth race something more involved than stepping out the front door. So, we hopped on a plane bound for Tokyo, onto a $30 bus bound for the city, and into an I'll-choke-if-I-write-it-down priced hotel overlooking the race start. Yes, overlooking the race start - because while Tokyo may be good at planning races, Stefano-shi is excellent at planning trips.



That being said, no one can prepare themselves for their first encounter with the Tokyo subway system. It's a thing of wonder, not only because the Japanese actually stand in line to wait for the next train, but because there are so many trains, and train lines, and station exits. Shinjuku station - the closest station to our hotel - is one of the busiest train stations in the world and it looks the part. Two million people pass through the station every day and it has around 50 exits. That's 50 ways to exit this station alone...



The day before the race we successfully, if perhaps a bit slowly at first, used the subway to get to the race expo. It was your standard marathon expo with vendors and samples and running-related merchandise, but it did differ from the usual race expos in one way: it shared the convention center with a manga (aka comic book) convention. And while it was fairly easy to distinguish between who came for the comic books versus who came for the marathon, the teenage girls could really throw you off. Apparently the dreams of awkward adolescent boys everywhere have come true in Japan where everyone, including fashionable young ladies, loves comic books.



We went to Italy for dinner the night before the race - apparently you can do these things in Tokyo. We actually went to Eataly, an Italian restaurant and gourmet food store in Tokyo's Daikanyama neighborhood. This place deserves any praise it gets. If I closed my eyes as we ate, I was back in Milan; their food is incredibly and deliciously authentic. We had a pizza margherita which was perfect (I thought I was back at Gamba Rotta on Via Moscova), and pasta with pesto reminiscent of meals we've had in Genoa. There is no doubt that this meal qualifies as one of my finest carbo-loading efforts in a long history of carbo-loading efforts. (Note: Carbo-loading before the Rome Marathon shall remain in a category all its own.)



Come race day morning I simply rolled out of bed and across the start line. Of course it was a little more complicated than that but not by much. I was one of some 35,000 people running the race so it was a pretty festive start with a great mass of people all moving in a single direction. It's always a thrill to be in a massive crowd that shares the same goal of forward motion. Some of us will take four hours, others will take two, but we all take the same path through the same rain or sun or shooting knee pain.

Alas, unfortunately the shooting knee pain was specifically for me. I don't really know what happened but at 35 kilometers my left knee stopped wanting to participate. I'm not really one for stopping or quitting so I just kept trudging along, alternating between the ultra-effective techniques of foot dragging and body lurching. (Think Swamp Monster exiting the lagoon.) I'm sure it was especially attractive along the highway overpass + bridge combination which was near the end of the race. A lot of marathons have these grim passages toward the end of the route and the only thing they're good for is reminding the human body that it's a lot harder to run uphill than on a flat surface.



Up to that point, though, it had been a good race. Stefano-shi made excellent use of the subway system and found me at two pre-determined locations along the route. There were also a lot of runners in costume to provide distraction, especially after the drizzle started halfway through. I spent a fair amount of time running behind a man wearing a towel and a shower cap who would sporadically squeeze a yellow rubber ducky at the crowd, and spent a few miles behind Mr. and Mrs. Claus. Also, due to the never-ending cheering of Japanese spectators, and because it sounds a lot like "shrimp" in Italian, I learned the word for "GO!" in Japanese.

I was ecstatic when I reached the finish line but also a bit cold since the weather had been steadily deteriorating. It was solidly grey and rainy when I finished and I was looking forward to my race "towel," whatever it turned out to be. Before the race we'd all received race packets replete with motivational advice such as: "For the first few kilometers, you had better run like warming up. No need to panic and be prepared for start in a relaxed manner." Having experienced this sort of English I was certain that the souvenir towel promised to race finishers would actually be the standard Mylar wrap, but no, it was an actual towel! Not bad at all.



After the finish line hoopla and medal-receiving, Stefano-shi found me and saved me from a long walk back to the family reunite area. Saving the ten minutes of wandering around looking for your family makes a big difference when you just want a hug and a piece of floor to sit on. Not only did I get a hug, and a place to sit on a folding table, but I also got a bowl of udon at a great fast noodle place by our hotel.

Not a bad way to end the day, and a 10th marathon.