Born to Run

  

I’ve  just got back from my 5km race.

I woke a little later than planned, so I set of by bike to the event. It was better than going by bus, it got my juices flowing. I opted for an audiobook (Dune – Frank Herbert read by Scott Brick , it’s excellent) instead of music for the journey so that I could keep it nice and relaxed. On arrival at the gym I swapped the postcard I had received for a goody bag containing a race T-shirt, race program, my number with an RF chip stapled to it, a bottle of water, a face towel and, naturally, some soy sauce.

(the ‘17th’ here is because this is the 17th time the race has been held, it isn’t a misprint)

I was pleasantly surprised to meet up with some kids and a teacher from Nishi Elementary School and I had a nice chat with them. At 9am it was time for the opening ceremony.It wouldn’t be Japan without one.

First off was the 2 & 3 km race, the parent-and-child race. It was nice to see some of my elementary-school kids there and to cheer them on. The winners finished incredibly quickly. While I was waiting a volunteer medic decided to practice his English on me, and asked me if  I’d like a quick blood test. I declined.

Then I was up on the starting line, after a good warm-up stretch. I had been called “broad-minded” because I had heaphones on. It wasn’t a compliment. I hadn’t done any training runs without music so I didn’t fancy starting now. I also liked to make sure runkeeper was running and to get the audio updates from it. I love runkeeper .  Both runkeeper and the couch-to-5km running plan were, combined, the reason I was here.

A few months ago when I started the training for this I was useless. I could barely run for a minute. I was running 1 minute, walking 90 seconds. And I was knackered. Today it was 5km, roughly 30 mins, no breaks (read on, dear reader, there was a short break).

  

Back to the starting line. I waves a “Hello and gambatte” to the pupils and ex-pupils who were there. Ready to run. 5 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, 10 seconds. Go! I set off, and mucked up the controls to runkeeper and set it to a 2.75km training run. No great disaster, it would just tell me to stop a little early, it would keep monitoring my run. Heart-rate monitor read a respectable 140-something bpm after the first minute and everything was good. There was a minor hiccup when I realised that one of my shoes were untied but it was easily fixed (the short break). I avoided the water pedlars, I’ve found that drinking en route is counter-productive.  Maybe if it had been a longer distance. Not much else happened really. I was very pleased when my final song was playing (Bruce Springsteen – Born to run, couldn’t have asked for a better finale from shuffle), I legged it to the end, overtaking two chaps between 7-11 and the end of the run. Seeing the finish line was incredible, and everyone was giving it beans in a very Japanese way cheering us on. It was magical. My RF-ID chip was unceremoniously ripped from my chest by an elementary-school student, I was handed a bottle of water and I went for a ‘little sit down’ before picking up my certificate. Turns out I did it in 29 minutes and 25 seconds, which isn’t bad as a starting point from which to improve. The certificate also informed me that it was 29 degrees Centigrade with a humidity of 78%. Knowledge is power.

So, what next?  I’m going to keep  training at about 5km for a few weeks to build up some speed then start aiming for a 10km in a few months. Time will tell. I definitely enjoy this a lot more than I thought I would.

I’ll leave you with a map of the route.

Give and Take

It is a far better thing than to give than to receive

It's mid-term test day. I'm sat reviewing 'giving and receiving' in Japanese, where it is a lot more complicated than it is in English. Japanese has lots of words that indicate status. One doesn't simply "give" to the boss, one "raises" a thing up. Actually, the word "give" in Japanese is あげる (ageru) which also means "raise". The word for giving to a superior is さしあげる (sashiageru) which has a sense of raising twice.
There are corresponding words for receiving, words for juniors, animals and plants, and different words if the person doing the giving isn't oneself.
It's a complicated business, and one that really hammers home status in a way that English doesn't. Of course, you could imply status in English, you could humbly receive, or many other things but you don't have to.It's optional.A teacher once told me that she would "order" me to mark some work, which raised some hairs on my back until I realised this would be an acceptable turn of phrase in Japanese. I was younger, newer to the school, etc. Didn't stop it being annoying.

Brothers and sisters are another difference between Japanese and English. In Japanese it is difficult and rare to say "sister" or "brother" without making it clear whether they are older or younger.I have been cautioned against the assumption that a language's characteristics mirror those of the society that speaks it. Certainly, it isn't universally true, but it seems to hold in this case. People adapt languages to their needs (which is why Orwellian Newspeak is a waste of effort), and Japanese is especially suited to making you acutely aware of position.

I've been listening to Dune on audiobook again, which always brings out the sociologist in me.
It's good to have an idea-ramble, a woolgathering, now and then.

On the subject of giving and receiving, the school is in swine flu (shingatainfuruenza - "new type 'flu" wouldn't want anyone avoidig pork) hysterics at the moment. Far better to neither give nor receive that. Everyone is wearing masks (with the noticeable excptions of myself and the school principal) which, as I've said before, are as effective against the 'flu as chain-link fencing is against mosquitoes. I am following the regular hand washing and gargling regime though. I need to be fit for my race on Sunday.
That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm running 5k on Sunday, and I'm pretty chuffed about it. I'm not expecting to finish first (last is far more likely) but I am expecting to finish. I've just about got my stamina up to 5km-levels so after this milestone race, I'll be trying to build up a bit of speed. Then on to 10km by February. It's weird, but I'm enjoying myself running. Never thought that would happen.
Next up after that is my second attempt at JLPT level 3. I'm pretty confident but I took a hammering in a practice test so I'm setting some time aside to really make sure I know what I'm doing. The test is on 6th December. Then it'll be time to get ready fo Chrimbo. I'm really looking forward to a trip home, I've een missing home a lot and it'll be good to see eeryone again.
Best get back to the books.

A Blog Post about Blog Posts: a postmodern blog blog bloggity blog blog blog bolg.

Sometimes I find myself reading other people’s blog posts and I’m humbled by the emotion and honesty I find there. I have just read this http://documental.ly/graham-wiseman

I am grateful that someone would open this window on their life and let me in (and you, if you click the link) for a few minutes. Silly videos and multimedia links are no substitute for honest, well-wrought words. While I am on the subject of humbling blogs, have a look at this blog http://lifeinlimpopo.blogspot.com/ in which Shivani ( a girl I knew when she was a first-year medical student) and her husband are working as doctors in Africa. That’s right, I know real grown-up people who are married and save people’s lives in Africa and everything.

I meant to write a blog post about Thailand. Thailand was fun, I have notes and things, and in the shambolic tradition of this blog, it will probably all be written up in a few months when anyonewho wanted know about my holiday will already know more than they wish to. I can confirm that I rode an elephant.

And I’m left living life in Japan. On Friday, after taking full advantage of the local culture by sitting in the house watching the Sopranos and drinking whisky with Michael and Stephen, I was getting ready to go to bed when there was a knock on my door. Michael had returned, and it seemed the next door neighbour had caused a ruckus in the night.

Not wanting to cast aspersions, I want to make it clear that I have no actual evidence that Michael’s neighbour arrived drunk after midnight, drove his car into Michael’s water main several times then ran into his house pretending to be asleep.

However, the car was ‘parked’ in a very slapdash manner next to a burst water pipe spewing water all over the place. A few investigations and cursory turning of levers and we had succeeded in turning of Michael’s gas, hot water and other internal necessities, but not in stemming the flow of water. A quick ‘pin-pon’ on the door and we were greeted by the offender’s wife. Once again, I would like to make it clear that the offender has not taken a blood-alcohol test and it would be wrong of me to pretend that he had. Wife came to the door and I asked her what had happened. “Chotto matte”, she said and returned to the house, where here husband was pretending to sleep.

Japanese houses afford little privacy, especially with the shutters and curtains open with the lights on at midnight. The guy wasn’t sleeping.  He eventually came out, slurred his speech, apologised lots and promised to call the handyman the next morning. He also re-parked the car, and in doing so managed to achieve by accident what we had been trying to do earlier. There was a crunch as the car went over the water main again and the water stopped.

True to his word, the man called the handyman and the water main is fixed. Not the most exciting, heart-warming or life-changing blog post ever, but it was honest.