Saturday – Sunday

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.