Tokyo Marathon

My sweet reward- a finisher's medal! (That's a breathe-right strip on my nose.)

The day of the Tokyo Marathon finally came on Sunday February 17th! We had a really good time, the weather was perfect and the crowds were unbelievable, I guess that's part of the experience here in Tokyo.

My time was an unremarkable 4:54:07. I did a little too much sightseeing in the first 5K, picked up speed between 10K-30K, and hit a wall around 38-40K. But I think I can improve on that next time around (Fall marathon, anybody?).

Some things about the race were remarkable - everything was very well organized. They had timing gates every 5K that recorded our splits and displayed them in real time on the web, in both regular and mobile-phone-browser formats!

My husband and I planned a series of cheering spots along the route, and after he dropped me off at the start line, he continued along the race course using the subway. Thanks to the live updates on the website, he could easily see where I was in the race and whether I had already passed by his current location. Even my mom tracked my progress from North Carolina, although she had to go to bed before the end of the race since it was midnight, NC time (Scottie, if you're reading this: "Stop! Nevada time...").

At the end of the race I received a finisher's medal - yay! I also got a free bottle of a mysterious product called "Air Salonpass". Directly behind the guys handing out the bottles was a large seating area, where runners plopped down, opened their samples, and sprayed every possible body part with Air Salonpass. Turns out it is a cooling muscle balm - aaaaahhhhhh, that was nice.

Tokyo Big Sight was just big enough for the marathon finish. Post-race, I picked up my race bag and headed through a series of changing rooms/halls out to the entrance of the convention center. My husband was there, waiting for me to victoriously emerge! We made our way home sloooooowly, since at that point my ability to walk was fading away thanks to fatigue plus cold temperatures. But after a couple of days' rest I was good as new and the medal is now enjoying a prominent position in the foyer, next to our collection of cute-neice-and-nephew photos.