Listening to “The Wind Up Bird Chronicle” on Audible. Been so long since I read this the first time, I might as well be reading it for the first time. I only very vaguely remember any of the story. Anyway, there’s this one line, from Mr. Honda, the spiritual advisor that Toru and Kumiko visit at the beginning of their marriage.

“The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you’re supposed to go up and down when you’re supposed to go down. When you’re supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you’re supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there’s no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness.”

This just reminded me a lot of my favorite quote from the Sheep Man.

Words to live by, if they mean anything at all to you. Otherwise, ignore.

After yesterday’s run we chilled out for a while until Kris’s tummy felt better. Then we ran around town doing some errands and a bit of shopping. For lunch we went to a kaitenzushi shop – aka “merry go round” sushi, where the dishes go past your table on a conveyer belt and you grab what you want. Great thing about this one was above the regular belt there was another glass track. On the table was a touch screen where you coule place special orders. These would be delivered to your table on a shinkansen (bullet train) running on the upper glass track. Fun stuff! From there we dropped Kris and Obaachan at home. Miranda and I went out to an Internet cafe to catch up on four days of email, check twitter, and do a couple of blog posts. Then Miranda’s favorite book store, “Book Off”. Hung out for a while at home but by 7:00 p.m. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I finally gave up and crashed.

Woke up at 1:00 a.m. Read and programmed for a couple hours and tried to get back to sleep. But the body clock said no, so finally I got up, got geared up, and went for a run.

I was hoping for at least 7-8 miles. I went out to the main highway the way we usually drive, and ran along the highway until I hit another road that I knew would loop me through the back way to home. I underestimated two things: 1. the length of the loop – only 6 miles. 2. How depleted of energy I was.

When I crashed the night before, it was before dinner. I’d had some chips before sleeping, and a few more after I woke up, but this was hardly the fuel needed for a long run. I also thought that there was a sidewalk along the highway. There was not. And not much of an edge there either. Had to stop often to let trucks go by. It’s also unsettling to run along the right side of the road and hear a truck barrelling up behind you. Of course it’s coming up on the left side of the road, but it never failed to scare me.

I reached the highway turnoff at 3 miles. I’d actually kept a pretty good pace up to that point – sub 9:00 for miles 2 and 3. That’s when I ran out of fuel. I walked a bit then started running again. But before long, I was getting dizzy and lightheaded. I know this feeling well from when I skip breakfast or take a late lunch. Low blood sugar. Not a great thing to have happen when you have 3 miles of hills between you and home. So from there on, it was about 50/50 walk/run. I’d walk up the hills and run down them.

As walks go though, it was pretty awesome. First up a steep winding hill lined with huge bamboo and pines so thickly they darkened the whole street. Then through a brief factory area and into the rice fields. Again, the Garmin map feature helped me quite a bit. Although you don’t see streets or anything, you do see where you started, each mile marker, and the path you took, as well as an indicator for North, and your own current heading. So you go in a direction that makes your heading point towards the starting point and choose your turns accordingly. Worked like a charm.

After breakfast, we drove out to a track, where Kris and Miranda both ran 20 minutes without stopping, to finish Week 5 of the Couch to 5K! I’m so proud of them. The rest of today is going to be mostly a stay at home and chill out day, which is totally fine with me. Miranda’s getting her hair done, then maybe doing some grocery shopping.

Tomorrow (Monday), bright and early, we drive to Kyoto, where we’ll be staying through Wednesday! Very psyched for that.

Friday, Miranda and I spent the day in Nagoya, which is about an hour and a half drive away. She spent most of her adult life there before moving to the states, so there were a few places she wanted to go and see and do some shopping etc. Kris stayed at home with Obaachan (Grandma).

We stopped for a late lunch and made a few other stops at some stores on the way back. We were both completely beat by the time we got back around 4:00 p.m. but said we were going to try to stay up and beat the jet lag. But when we got back, Kris was struggling to stay awake herself. We got some food in her then she crashed. Miranda was out like a light by 5:00 p.m. and Obaachan had retreated to her room to let us rest. I held out until around 7:00 p.m. doing some reading and recreational coding, but finally gave up and went to sleep too. At around 10 p.m. Kris woke up with a bloody nose. We took care of that and the girls went back to sleep. I stayed up until around 1:00 a.m. and then hit the sack for the second time, hoping to sleep past 4:00 a.m. By 4:20, Miranda and I were all wide awake. Kris stayed sleeping. I went out running at 5.

For this run, I went in the opposite direction, towards the mountains to the north. Where we are staying is on the western edge of a foothill to the south of the mountain range. Running north for a quarter mile up hill got me over that hill, where I could then go down into the valley between it and the southernmost mountain. Running through the village of the main street of the valley, I finally found a break in the houses which led to a path into the mountain. It was paved, but narrow and very steep. A lot of runoff also made it very slick and slippery. I ran a good ways up, but obviously needed to stop and walk quite a bit. Took a few side paths, but these all eventually ended in very tight paths overgrown with bamboo. Huge spiderwebs blocked the way in spots, and I was worried about wild monkeys (no lie), so I turned back and kept going up.

Eventually, the narrow path gave way to an actual street. I kept going up and at the peak of the slope of that street there was an opening in the trees and I was awarded with a stunning view of the valley and plain of the town below. It seemed like I was about half way up the slope of the mountain, but I have to guess that it was significantly less than that.

After the peak, it was a serious downhill run back into the valley. Even trying to brake myself, I hit a 6:30 pace. Then back out of the valley and to the old homestead. It was only 4 miles – I had planned on doing 5 or 6. But it was such an awesome run overall that I felt I had done much more than that.

When I got back home, I found that Kris had finally woken up but was not feeling well. Thirteen hour jet lag has a way of doing bad things to your stomach. At least that’s my experience. Seems to be the case with Kris as well. She’s doing better now, but we postponed our plans to go to “Sea Paradise” today. Will just do some stuff around the town.

Pics from the run:

After 29 hours door-to-door, we have arrived at the old homestead in Japan. Called a taxi at 3:00 a.m. Wednesday, got to the airport around 3:30ish. Amazingly, there was already a crowd at check in, so it’s a good thing we arrived a bit early. First leg of the journey was a 6:00 a.m. flight to Chicago. A three-hour layover turned into a four-hour layover, but we finally got on the next flight to Tokyo. A thirteen hour interminable ride across Canada, Alaska, Russia, the Sea of Okhotsk, across Hokkaido and down into central Japan. Some amazing views of mountains in eastern Russia.

Arrived in Tokyo about 2:30 p.m. local time Thursday. It took two hours to get through customs, immigration, re-check in, etc. Then another two hour wait for our final flight to Nagoya. Arriving there, we rented our car and finished the final one-hour drive into Tado-cho at 9:30 p.m. ・29.5 hours from when we left home. Ouch.

Some drinks, some snacks, catching up with Grandma and exchanging news , presents, and plans for the next two weeks, and we池e ready to hit the hay. Or the futon anyway. It was a rough day, but very happy to be here.

Friday Morning

Got to bed about 11:00 p.m. Slept on thin futons on the tatami floor. Not as uncomfortable as it sounds. I slept soundly, but at 4:00 a.m. I woke up and realized that was it for me. I rolled over and Miranda asked me what time it was. She was wide awake too. Within seconds we noticed that Kris was up too. Lounged around for a bit and when I noticed dawn was breaking, I geared up and went out for a run. That was about 5:00 a.m.

I had a vague idea of where I wanted to go. I figured if I could take the back roads south to the main highway, I could come back to the house via the route I was familiar with. While I didn’t quite get lost, I never made it to the highway either. I wound up in a loop around mile three that took me back to the main road I’d been on. At that point I decided to turn back. Things started looking a bit unfamiliar, so I turned on the map feature of my Garmin 305 and verified I was on the correct route back. In fact, that even helped me find a shortcut back. Total was 6 miles at a decent pace of 9:15/mi. Decent especially considering it wound up being a pretty hilly route – we are in the foothills of a mountain range, so there’s not much chance of avoiding hills. I had to stop and walk briefly 2-3 times to recover from hills.

It’s a very rural area, all rice fields, and bamboo and pine covered slopes. No sidewalks to speak of, and and 18-inch deep runoff channels on each side of most roads. Had to be really careful with oncoming traffic. One wrong step to avoid a car and you face a near certain broken ankle. At one point where I stopped to let some trucks go by, I looked down and saw a bunch of stuff on the side of the road – a lighter, some pens, some baggies with nuts and bolts in them, and a couple handfuls of coins. I quickly scooped up the coins, not realizing until I got back that they were mostly tokens of some kind – probably for pachinko or video games or something.

The rurality gave way to an industrial area filled with factories around the area where I turned back. There were no other runners out, but a few factory workers were getting off of the night shift and heading back to their cars. And encountered one guy on a bike, probably heading to work. I gave a few cheery “Ohayou Gozaimasu”s, but mostly I think people were wondering who this crazy gaijin out running at dawn was.

The plan for the rest of today is to drive back to Nagoya to do some shopping. Not sure why we’re going all the way there, but apparently there are some places Miranda wants to go there.

Last week, Tuesday through Thursday, I ran 5, 6.25 and 5 miles. A decent mid-week base. The weekend was supposed to be hot, but hotter on Sunday than Saturday, so Saturday I went out for a long run. I’m still running without a plan, so I wasn’t sure how much I’d do. Maybe 8. Maybe 10. 13, 15??? Well, it may have been the cooler of the two days, but it was still hot, so I when I got to Pond Road on the Natick/Wellesley border, I decided to turn there and make it a 10 miler. Besides, Pond Road is one of my favorite streets to run on. You get about a mile or so of this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/saltygal/2883035800/ (Photo has all rights reserved so I can’t post it here, but I’ll link to it.) All in all, the run went really well. I was tired by the end, but felt good.

Sunday I woke up feeling pretty tired. I put off running until later in the day, when it was about 90° with high humidity. When I set out, I thought, “How awesome would it be to do 10 and 10, back to back? A 20 mile weekend!” Alas, it was not in the cards. I headed down Commonwealth Ave. on the Newton Hills. First 3 miles, my pace was just over 9:00. I was winded but felt good and strong. Then everything left me. I had to stop and walk for a couple of minutes. Turned around at 3.25. Took a few more walk breaks on the way back. Pace for the last 3 miles was over 11:00. Blah! But I did manage an 8:30 pace last half mile. That allowed me to come home with some pride.

Total for the week, 32.76 miles. A new record!

Today’s Monday. I took the day off. I’ll run in the morning, but not sure what’s up after that. Wednesday, we leave on a 6:00 a.m. flight to Japan. Actually, it’s a flight to Chicago, then Tokyo, then Nagoya, where we rent a car and drive about an hour or so to Tado-cho. We’ll arrive Thursday evening (damn date line!) so I have no idea if I’ll be running Friday. All depends on how I feel. I’m shooting for at least a short one some time during the day. Generally I’m up at some ungodly hour in the morning anyway due to jet-lag, waiting for the sun to come up and wandering around the rice fields or the temple up on the mountain behind the house. This time I might as well take advantage of my early wakefulness to get in some runs. Mostly I’m scared of getting lost. Hoping my Garmin works well there, and may have to test the “navigate back to start” function on it, which supposedly will tell you which way to go to return to the point where you started the current workout.

No idea what my Internet connectivity is going to be like. Generally, it’s been non-existent other than an occasional trip to an Internet Café to rent time on a pc. We’ll see if public wifi has made it to the town yet. I’ll try to post updates and some pics while I’m there, but not sure how regularly.

Well, the year is half over. Let’s check the scoreboard.

I’ve done 110 runs this year, for a total of 555.41 miles. That’s 55 miles over my half-way-to-1000 mark. So doing great there. Average miles per run is 5.05. Here’s my graph of miles per day:

Pretty plain to see where my half marathon training started and ended. I suspect there’ll be another similar trend between the end of July and the beginning of October, as I plan for my next half marathon.

As for races, I did two 5Ks, a 5 miler, and a half marathon. Very happy with the 5Ks. I was sick with a fever during the 5 mile race so just finishing was good enough. And on the half marathon, I missed my target of sub 2:00 due to the unexpected toll the heat took on me. I fully intend to meet that goal this October.

What has all this meant in physical terms? Well, here’s my weight for the year:

Not a spectacular loss, but relatively stable over long term. Slow and steady, right?

One of the coolest things is how many people I think I’ve influenced to start running and getting into shape. I blog about my running here and there and tweet about it occasionally, hopefully just under the annoying level. But every time I go to a conference or meet a group of friends, a few people will come up to me and ask how the running is going, and tell me how they started running too. Best of all is that my wife and daughter have started running. They are doing the Couch to 5K together and are now half way through week 4. My wife has watched me running for many months now, perplexed at why I get up at 5:45 a.m. each day and complain about this pain or that, yet keep running. But after going to two of my races in a week, and having my daughter run her first race and get a medal, she has fully caught the running bug and is scouting out her own first 5K.

Last I wrote, I had just finished 500 miles. A day or so after that I was off to Minneapolis to speak at the Flashbelt conference. I knew that at least a few people at the conference were runners, so I sent out the word to organize a group run. I wasn’t sure how many would show up for a 7:00 a.m. run, but if nothing else, I had planned to run with Jeni, who I’ve known for several months on DailyMile.com, a MN native. As it turned out we had 5 runners, plus 2 who biked along with us. Jeni took us down along the Mississippi River a couple of miles or so, across and back partway on the other side, for just over four and a half miles. It was great.

Here’s Jeni and I on the bridge on the way back:

And me with the rest of the runners…

The next day I went out again, unfortunately alone. Did approximately the same route. Running with the group was awesome, but it was also nice to take in the scenery in solitude.

The last full day I was there I went for a walk down to a mountaineering shop a couple of blocks from the hotel. I noticed they had Vibram Five Fingers. I’ve been wanting to try them out for a while, but wanted to wait until my last two races were done. So on a whim I got fitted for a pair. The next day I got up early and went out for a mile and a half in them. I knew better than to do too much all at once. Didn’t feel bad, a bit of tightness in my calves later, but not bad. By noon I was in the air on my way back home.

I got back home Thursday. Friday I went out for a five miler in my regular shoes. It was a pretty fast one – almost 5K pace for the first four miles. I wound up burning out after that and had to walk a bit and came home with just 4.75. The next day, Saturday, I did a 2 miler in the VFFs. When I got back, I spent the next several hours doing heavy duty yard work, including carrying 16x16x2 inch concrete tiles from the front of the house, up the steps and into the back yard, leveling the ground and putting them in place.

Somewhere between the really fast run on Friday, the 2 mile VFF run, and the heavy lifting, I did some damage. Sunday I went for a 3 miler in the VFFs and had a really sharp pain deep in the right glute. Probably the piriformis muscle. But after about a mile into the run it eased up a bit. More lifting and carrying on Sunday.

It was pretty painful on Monday, but I took a day off running and stretched and iced.  Tuesday I went out for what planned to be 5 miles, but wound up in such pain that I had to stop and walk, limping for several minutes. Came home with only three.

So yes, an official injury I think. I took the next two days off, stretched, foam rolled, and iced. Friday I tentatively went out for a nice slow one. The rest, ice, stretching, rolling had apparently done its job. I took home 4 miles with some sensation back there, but no pain. Over the weekend I did another 6 and 8, feeling pretty good. So as injuries go, I think I got off pretty easy.

But now I’m pretty skittish about the VFFs. I’m pretty sure the injury was not related to them, but it’s hard not to connect them. My guess is it had a lot more to do with the fast run and the heavy lifting and carrying two days straight. At any rate, there’s still some very minor discomfort back there. So I’m going to wait until it feels 100% before I go back on the minimal shoes again.

Today: 8.00 miles
Week: 24.1 miles
June: 33.98 miles
2010: 502.0 miles

Back in December, I set a goal for 2010 to run 1000 miles. Today, two weeks shy of six months, I’ve met the halfway mark of that goal. Today’s run was 8 miles at a overall pace of 8:58. My first 8 miler was back in January, at a pace of 10:42. I’ve come a long way, baby.

When I started – ok, when I re-started – this blog, to talk about my running efforts, I was writing up every run, every new thing I learned or new piece of equipment. Now, as you can see, I just stop by every once in a while to give an update. It’s not that I’m not into running anymore; it’s that running has just become a normal part of my life, that writing that I went for a run today is kind of like saying I breathed today. But I still want to come by every once in a while to give a generalized update on what’s going on.

Last update was about Boston’s Run to Remember, my ugly attempt at a sub-two-hour marathon, beat by the heat. The week following that, I did a couple 3 milers to stretch the legs a bit and followed up with the Schofield 5K Road Race last Sunday. Here’s my Daily Mile report of that race:

That was perfect!

The sun came out just as the race was starting, heating up to mid-high 70s with close to 80% humidity, echoing last week’s deadly conditions. But I went out strong. There’s a longish, slow hill right after the start. I also had a massive adrenaline rush when we started. The hill + adrenaline made me a bit lightheaded for a bit. But got over that and finished the first mile in about 7:40, feeling really good.

Right at about 1.1 or 1.2 miles, there’s a short, but VERY steep hill. That was a killer, but the other side is a very long stretch down hill, followed by another short not-so-bad hill. By the end of mile 2, I was hurting, but encouraged by the fact that there was only one to go.

Mile 3 was a mental challenge, but picked up the pace a bit. It’s mostly flat, with a bit of downhill near the end. The mile 3 timer said 23:50 something. I knew I was in the running for sub-25 minutes so gave it a strong kick. The home stretch is all down hill. I saw the finish line timer at 24:40. Gave it everything I had and came in at 24:56.

New 5K PR, #64 overall and #18 in my age group. Pretty happy with myself today.

So, yeah, that was great. Also, on that day, my daughter, Kris, ran a kids’ 1K fun run. All finishers got a pretty awesome medal. She is so proud and has seriously caught the running bug.

For the year now, I stand at 494 miles. I plan to pop it over 500 this Saturday. That leaves me at half way to 1000 for the year, a good two weeks ahead of schedule.

Overall, I’m still seeing my progress improve. Late last year I was struggling to get below that 10 minute mile mark. Back then, I could do it, but only with much pain. Then it got so 10:00 was a comfortable pace. Then high 9′s. then mid 9′s. Now I’ll bring home a 5 or 6 mile run in the low 9′s. Today was 9:17, with nice negative splits leaving the last two miles at sub-9:00 and feeling pretty comfortable.

Also doing well on the weight front. After a steady progression downward all year, I hit a plateau for several weeks, bouncing around from 199 to 202. But for the last week straight I’ve been under 200, and feel like I’m back on the losing track.

As for the title, Runner Without a Cause, I’m only referring to the fact that I have no races scheduled, and no training plain that I’m working through. I’m planning when, where, how long, and how fast I run on an impromptu basis. It’s kind of fun that way, but a little strange after months of being on a strict schedule. I’m looking at doing the BAA Half Marathon in October, which means I’ll be back on a training plan in July. The next month entails quite a bit of travel anyway, 5 days in Minneapolis, and two weeks in Japan, so it’s probably best that I’m flexible now.

Today: 13.1 miles
Week: 20.31 miles
April: 124.93 miles
2010: 467.28 miles

Boston’s Run To Remember

Well, I now have a half marathon under my belt. Wasn’t exactly the time I was hoping for, but I’ll take it and do better next time. I’ve been running my last few long runs not too much slower than my target race pace of 9:00. In fact, a week ago today, I did 13.0 miles in 2:03. So I thought it would be a shoe-in to do less than two hours today.

What I didn’t count on was the effects of heat and humidity. It was in the low 70′s when we started at 8:00 a.m. and climbed to high 70′s quickly. Not sure what the humidity was, but it was up there for sure. Sun was beating down hard.

The race starts in the Seaport section of Boston. There’s not much out there other than some office buildings, a convention center and hotel, and lots of parking lots and construction. But the first thing you do is go over a bridge into Boston proper, wind around a bit and finally cross the Longfellow Bridge into Cambridge. Then it’s down Memorial Drive along the Charles River for a few miles and back. When you cross the Longfellow again, you go down historic Charles Street, a couple of blocks down Commonwealth Ave, then through downtown Boston and back to the Seaport.

Click for full-size map.

By mile 4, I knew I was in trouble. I was going along at about an 8:50 pace, but I was beat already. I knew I couldn’t keep that up for another 11 miles. By about 5.5 miles, I had to give in and take a one minute walk break. Around the half way mark, I remembered that I’d brought some gel and ate that. There was a water stop at about that point too. I had to take more walk breaks, going for a one minute or so break every mile. But around mile 7-8, the gel kicked in and gave me a bit more energy. I continued liberal walk breaks, but tried to keep them to a minute or less. In my defense, there were PLENTY of others walking – people a lot younger and more in shape than me.

By around mile 10, I was really hurting. The walks were coming closer together. I finally reached the Longfellow Bridge to take me back into Boston. It’s about a half mile across. I determined to do it all in a single run. Half way across, I saw a man over on the side, holding onto the railing, obviously just trying desperately to stay upright, and not doing a very good job of it. A couple other runners ran over to him and about the same time an officer or EMT or something on a bicycle zipped over to help him out, calling for more help on a radio.

That caused me to take stock of myself, wondering how close I might be to the same situation. This guy seemed younger and in better shape than me. But I didn’t feel THAT bad, so I made my goal of getting across the bridge. Right after that on Charles Street, another woman was lying on the ground, feet propped up, being tended to by an EMT. She looked to be early to mid 20′s and very fit. Again, I assessed how I was doing and determined to avoid any heroics. From there, the walk/run ratio became almost 1:1. I don’t really know because I was beyond trying to time anything. I’d just run til I knew I couldn’t run anymore, then walk until I felt I was ready to go again.

I saw my 2:00 goal vanish early on, then 2:05, and finally even realized 2:10 was out of my reach. But it seemed like 2:15 was still obtainable. I got through downtown and back to the bridge to the Seaport. With the finish line in sight and less than a half mile to go, I still had to take a walk break. By this time, my calves were cramping up pretty badly but there was not much to do than just push on. I finally ran in the last quarter mile or so, knowing that my wife and daughter were watching near the finish line.

Official time: 2:13:43. Not anywhere near to my original goal, but I made it across on my own two feet, so I can’t really complain. Now I have a new PR to beat. All in all, a grueling, not very pleasant experience. But hey, I have my very first race medal!