amanda in japan | living in ihatov country

‘running’ Category

you win some, you lose some

May 20, 2013 by amanda

Photo credit: Jseagull

I was excited for the Umineko Half Marathon in Hachinohe mid-way through May, but a combination of a cold and lack of training had me a little worried that perhaps this would be the first race I would have to bow out of. But, hah! I said. I’ve felt this way before, and I’ve crushed all those puny kilometers (in this case, crush means that I finished, barely). I’m not scared of the distance any more either – 21 kilometers?! Child’s play! I figured as long as I went slowly I’d be fine.

It was a gorgeous race too; the course ran by the famed Kabushima Shrine on the water, surrounded by umineko seagulls, and then proceeded down a coastal road, with the sea and the wind a few meters away to the left. I don’t mind running when I’m surrounded by a beautiful coastal vista, you know? So I knew I would be alright if I just took it slow. Besides, with all the seagulls flying around, you didn’t want to stand in one place for too long, if you know I mean.

So I ran slowly but surely. So slowly, in fact, that I ended up running out of time around the 18km mark. Three kilometers left to go! Three! That’s like…a mile. That’s it. They couldn’t just let me go? It wasn’t even that I was any slower than running Sendai last year – I think they were just actually enforcing the time limit. So I had to take the bus back, sweaty and upset and gross. It kind of sucked, and I was pretty humbled by my first non-finish. I know I’m not a fast runner, and I don’t think I’ll ever be. I just wasn’t too cool about being the slowest runner. And it just really burned that I didn’t get to finish. However slow I lumber along, I pride myself on always lumbering past that finish line.

But I regrouped – even if I had made a poor showing, my friend had run his best half marathon ever, which is pretty awesome. That’s the joy of running – the only person you’re competing against is yourself. Everyone else is just smiles and encouragement. (The other joy would be those fleeting glimpses of the Most Beautiful Man). Running is a pretty cool way to spend your time, as long as you don’t go down the rabbit hole and post a status update after every single practice run. (“YEAH! I ran 2 kilometers in 20 minutes tonight!”)

The only person beating myself up for not finishing was myself. I realized that I hadn’t really failed at running before, but that’s because I haven’t really let myself fail. I’ve made such a slow progression in distance because I don’t want to have to give up halfway. But it’s gotta happen once in a while – failing, I mean. In fact, getting upset about it would just prevent me from trying again – it would be a defense against the pain of failing, of growth. This is getting pretty deep for a blog about running, but hating myself for running 18 kilometers on a beautiful course is just plain dumb. I mean, so what? Am I going to give up on running now? Ridiculous. That was a thought I actually had, too, for a few seconds on the bus. That’s how ridiculous I am, as a human.

So, yesterday, I ran a 10k, and though I was humbled by my recent defeat in Hachinohe, I knew I could use this to get back on the proverbial horse. It was a course I’d run before, it was a distance that I was very comfortable with, and I was feeling damn good. And I ended up shaving ten seconds off my best 10k time. I may yet fail again, but that’s just another opportunity to grow. I guess you just have to lose against yourself time and again.

And, anyway. Even if you reached a state of perfection, you’d have no where else to go but down.

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いわてのけ姫

April 11, 2013 by amanda

Recently, I’ve been trying to fit in training for another half-marathon before my mom and step-dad come for a visit (and a trip to Fukuoka to see E for Golden Week after that). This is in between manically cleaning my room and getting super busy at work, etc. etc. I’m certainly doing better than last year’s Sendai Marathon, where the longest I had run was like, 12km before trying to run a half-marathon. “If I can run 12km, I can somehow…run double that distance when it comes down to it!!”

This year I can tell I’m a bit stronger of a runner. This weekend I was running on a course of my own design, planning to go up the mountain road behind my apartment and then over to a pond to the north of the city and back. 17km on hills, flat trails, and roads. Girl, yeah! You can do this! You certainly have nothing else to do today!

Incidentally, there are occasional bear sightings within Iwate, which is why you have to carry a bell with you when you go hiking, to alert them of your presence so they don’t eat you (?). I’ve run this mountain course before, which is surrounded by houses and business and a zoo (!) so there’s enough human civilization around to limit bear maulings. But I always wonder while I am wandering – dude, what if I did get eaten by a bear? People would just be like, that girl was a dang idiot.

So I’m running the first like, kilometer of my course. I’m part way up the hill, running through a forested road, and I come out by a rickety old business and a small farmfield. Nothing out of the ordinary. All of a sudden I see a grey shadow moving about 50 feet to my right, and I stopped short. CRAP what the hell is that-

It wasn’t big enough to be a bear so I thought it might be even worse – a wild boar. But no, it was just one of these guys:

Photo: wikipedia

It was a kamoshika, or Japanese serow. It’s kind like a deer or a goat, ie., a herbivore ie., phew. Pretty much harmless. It stopped padding along as soon as I did, and we both stared at each other for a good minute. Uh okay. I’m just going to walk slowly up the road out of sight… I stepped gingerly forward, making my way up the road, and keeping eye contact with the kamoshika. Her eyes followed mine as she watched me walk up the path and she stayed in that spot until I couldn’t see her any longer.

And that was the extent of my encounter with nature this time around. I won’t lie, it was pretty beautiful. I had a moment there, locking eyes with this majestic beast – but seriously, that is some Princess Mononoke-type shit right there.

Well, Ashitaka is from Michinoku, no?

Category random, running | Tags: | 1 Comment
チーム・しゃてんず

October 1, 2012 by amanda

Won 1st place in the Oshu-Esashi International Exchange Marathon – International Relay Division!!

It’s probably going to be both the first and last time I win any sort of race, and it’s really all due to my team mates. The really fast lady on our team did the first leg, and the two guys are pretty fast, so even though I ran faster than I normally do, I only had a 2km section. So really, it’s not because of anything I did. Also, we only had five teams in our division, hah. But! Two years ago we got last place, last year we got second. I’m pretty dang satisfied to know that all this running is doing something!

(clicking on that link and reading about my infatuation with the Most Beautiful Man is quite a trip. It feels like a million years ago, to be honest! Jesus, I really am a twit about these sorts of things. This is why I’m not writing about W-kun in anything other than my own personal diary)

Actually winning something has sparked a bit more passion in running than I’ve had of late. I’ve figured now that I’m going to have waves of this thing – I’m going to have months where all I do is run, and months where it’s a chore to get out the door. I still want to complete my goal of running a 10k in less than an hour this year, but my last chance is in November. I’m running Kamaishi again, but I’m going for the 17km challenge, so all that’s left is the Miyako 10k. Maybe this will get me moving. I only need to shave 2~3 minutes off my time. Two to three minutes! That can’t be too hard. I won’t lie, I’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t happen, but I should have signed up for a few more races as well (I kept missing the deadlines because I’m in lala land). After Miyako, I won’t have another race til probably May. I don’t think I’ll be doing the Ishigaki trip again (I loved it, but it would be a repeat of last year, and it’s a ton of money that I don’t have), so maybe I’ll hop down to another part of Japan instead. Fukuoka, perhaps?? :)

Category running | Tags: | 1 Comment
“strong” not “fast”

August 20, 2012 by amanda

The following is an excerpt from “Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteiru (The Wind is Blowing Strongly)” by Miura Shion.

If I’m going to enter the Toutai University time trial event, I’ll have to see Sakaki. What will Sakaki do? Can I really beat him, when he’s enrolled in a school that has such a strong track team?

Kakeru left the twins’ room on the pretense of using the bathroom, went downstairs and opened the door outside from the entrance way. The gravel glimmered faintly in the starlight. It was as if he was being invited somewhere. Towards a road glittering white. To a deep place inside his very soul.

About to break out into a run, he remembered he was still wearing sandals and stopped himself. He could hear Nira rustling from under the trees. Kakeru sighed and walked slowly towards the landlord’s house. Nira nuzzled his wet nose against Kakeru’s feet, and he crouched down and petted the dog’s warm fur.

Nira wagged his tail energetically. Kakeru heard footsteps behind him on the gravel. He didn’t have to look up to see it was Kiyose.

Kiyose crouched down beside him and scratched Nira’s ears, and the dog panted happily. Kakeru waited for Kiyose to say something, but he never did. Kakeru broke the silence.

“Are you really going to make me enter the time trial and inter-collegiates?”

“Of course I am. We’re aiming for Hakone eventually, aren’t we?”

“I’m going to have an awful time, I’m sure of it.”

“Why?” Kiyose asked evenly. Kakeru looked at the side of his face while patting Nira’s neck.

“Haiji-san, you know, don’t you? You heard about it, right? My reputation during high school.”

“What, like the fact that you were really fast?”

“That was the good reputation. What I’m talking about is -”

“Kakeru,” Kiyose cut him off. “Listen, your past and your reputation is not what’s going to run that race. You are running that race. Don’t be bothered by all that. Don’t pay attention to what’s around you. Be stronger.”

Kiyose stood up, wincing as he stretched his knee. Kakeru and Nira looked up at him. The stars in the sky sparkled above his head like a precious crown.

“Stronger…?” Kakeru asked.

“I believe in you,” smiled Kiyose as he walked on the gravel back towards the dormitory.

Kakeru thought to himself as he patted Nira’s smooth back. Lots of people had told him he had to be faster, but he had never been told to be stronger. Stronger. What did that even mean?

A small flame alighted in his breast, which had been frozen for so long. It seemed to hold back the impulsiveness and darkness that always seemed to be calling him. Kiyose’s words had a quiet power to them. Almost as if they calmed the fears inside of him.

“Okay,” he murmured and stood up. He was never any good at thinking about the small stuff. All he would have to concern himself with was running. Even if he saw people he didn’t want to see, even if he had a rough go of it, all he had to do was ignore that all and just run. That was the only thing he could do.

Kakeru said goodnight to Nira and went inside.

–”Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteiru” (The Wind is Blowing Strongly) by Miura Shion

I haven’t posted a book excerpt translation in a long time, but I have been reading. The past few months have been dedicated to this 600+ page monster about a small college track team aiming to compete in the Hakone Relay Marathon, the most famous college race here in Japan, and one of the most popular sporting events of the year. I have to confess that I didn’t know all that much about the race before I started the book, but with more than 200 pages dedicated to the marathon I bet you I could run it myself. Ah hah hah. Yeah, no way. I couldn’t even run a leg of Hakone, with all of them being more than 20km, and all the runners having speeds of over 3min per kilometer. Three minutes per kilometer! My best pace is TWICE that. Sure, they’re all guys, and they’re all 20 years old and all, but still. I’m never going to be that fast.

But, as Kiyose says towards the middle of the book, it’s not about speed. It’s about being strong. If you wanna get somewhere fast, a bicycle or a car or an airplane would get you there faster. It’s about getting there on your own two feet – that’s what running’s all about.

I just gotta get stronger.

(PLUS: there’s a foreign guy on the team, an African named Musa. So you would think it’s some wunderkind from Kenya, but Musa’s just a normal guy from an African country (they never specify where, so it’s still an unfortunate case of a vague, monolithic Africa. Can’t be perfect, I guess!) who’s studying at a Japanese university. He even complains that it’s a stereotype that all Africans can run fast. I was really impressed with his characterization, and happy that the foreigner had other aspects to him than just being foreign)

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a sixty ton angel falls to the earth

June 18, 2012 by amanda

photo by Mini – Owner

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy, days of summer

Those days of soda and pretzels and beer

– “Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer” by Nat King Cole

In the fall, right before my grandparents moved to an apartment ten minutes away from my mother, my grandfather bought a brand new car.

When my mother told me on Skype, I just started laughing. I could just imagine my mother and my grandmother yelling at him “Are you crazy?!”, and him being stubborn and buying it anyway. Mom just smirked and said it was easy to laugh when you didn’t have to deal with him all the time. He was a gregarious, cheerful, outgoing man, but he was also stubborn and difficult. Buying a new car when he’d only be able to drive for maybe another few years was just like him.

That Christmas, I bought him a special “Safe Driving” charm from the local Shinto shrine. It was a light blue felted piece of cardboard, embroidered with Chinese characters that I knew he wouldn’t even understand as writing. “Here, Grandpa,” I said. “This is to protect you while you’re driving. It’s Japanese.”

“Huh? I can’t read this!” he said.

“It’s like a St. Christopher medal in the car, Dad,” Mom said.

“It’s for your new car,” I smiled. He shrugged, smiled and put it in his pocket.

I’m sure he bought the car in preparation for his first summer in a new place, so that he could go to sports games and parades. Because he had always gone to sports games and parades, and he always would. He’d sit on a worn-out lawn chair, with the plastic netting fraying at the edges, and he’d watch the parade go by with a smile on his face. And occasionally, I’d sit with him. I just wish it had more than “occasionally.”

When I was older and in college, I’d still manage to go to a parade once or twice a year with him. The funny thing was, he would start talking about things I’d never heard him talk about before. Old friends and family members I would never meet. The war, his time in Europe. My parents’ divorce. How much he loved his daughter. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me, or her. I’d usually just sit and listen, not knowing what to say, and he’d talk until he had nothing more to say, and then he would act like he hadn’t said anything at all. Then the parade would be over, and we’d pack up the lawn chairs and put them in the trunk of his car. He always had them in there, just in case.

I’ve only seen the new car maybe once. I don’t even remember what it looks like.

+++

A week after he died, one of my coworkers came up to me during lunch with a small envelope. I smiled at her, thinking it was some sort of translation work, until I got a glance at the characters.

There’s a Japanese custom where coworkers collect some condolence money for a coworker who has lost a family member; it’s called “koden 香典”. Usually they hand over this money at the funeral, but since I wasn’t able to attend my grandfather’s, they just decided to hand it to me now. I hadn’t even thought of that. I knew about the custom, but I hadn’t even thought…

“I gathered something from everyone in our division, plus some people who used to be here, like C-kacho,” she explained, pulling out a folded list of names. “I even got some from your friends working on the coast.” Along with my coworkers’ names were S-kun, Y-kun, Potato-san. Junya. My eyes filled with tears, but I smiled anyway.

My coworkers and friends thought of my and my family, and my grandfather, and I hadn’t expected that. I know it’s a custom, and it’s something that’s expected here, but I didn’t even think that I would be included in something like that. It’s hard to explain. I just know that I’m honored to work with these people, and my life is so much richer for having met them. I don’t even know what else to say.

I hope that he knew that.

+++

There was a general meeting/party for the Prefectural Office Running Club, so I went into town to sit in a warm tatami room with cold beer and good friends. As we were all introducing ourselves and talking about our goals for the year, an older gentleman stood up and starting talking about his recent experience running a 100 (!!) kilometer race.

“It took me around 11 hours,” he said, to thunderous applause. “I gotta say, it was rough. It was really rough. I thought I was going to give up so many times. But then towards the end, I remembered that my three grandchildren were waiting for me at the finish line. So I gathered my strength, and as I approached, they ran towards me and we went across the finish line, hand in hand.”

Everybody awwed, and I looked down at my glass. My chest felt tight and my eyes a little hot. I grabbed my beer and steadied my hand.

This one’s for you, Grandpa.

There were other Grandpas, and there were other Granddaughters out there. And this was my first reminder that I wasn’t part of that anymore.

+++

Lately, on my runs, I imagine that my grandfather is cheering me on from the sidelines whenever I start to get tired. He’s never seen me run, but I could imagine him being there at the finish line of some marathon. But I’ve done these sort of things before – imagining the Most Beautiful Man run alongside me or that my friends on the coast would be pushing me forward. Okay, so I have fever dreams because I’m a weenie who still can’t run a little bit of distance without wanting to be lazy.

But on my last run, at about the halfway mark I looped by the industrial district and started heading home when I suddenly felt a bit strange. As I imagined my grandfather, he suddenly seemed to be right there beside me, running with me. I’ve only known my grandfather as an old man, but he seemed younger, maybe in his 30s or 40s. Of course, there was nothing actually there, but I just felt like he was running with me. On a narrow gravel road through an orchard, he was running with me.

I don’t know if I believe in Heaven or an afterlife. I was raised Catholic, so that belief in angels and life after death is always going to be there, in some way. Even if it’s just because I’m afraid of death and dying, and I really hope that this is not all there is. I’m not really superstitious, and I don’t believe in ghosts, but I don’t know. I just felt something. Maybe it was only my own mind. Maybe the rhythm of the music and the rhythm of my feet had lulled my brain into a trance. All I knew was I wasn’t so tired anymore.

Around the end of my run, I had snapped out of it. It felt like he had looked around, and saw my life. He saw what made me so happy here. He saw the people I love. And he saw that I was going to be okay. My grandpa, who never made it to Japan. Maybe in some way, he could do that now.

He always used to ask me when I was coming home. I just had a feeling that he had finally seen where home was for me, as we ran through vegetable fields in Morioka.

always the summers are slipping away

find me a way for making it stay

- Trains, by Porcupine Tree

Category japan, navel-gazing, running | Tags: | 2 Comments
走力ぐんぐんUP

May 17, 2012 by amanda

Picture by E

Sendai Half-Marathon 2:33:45

One year ago, I could just about run 3 kilometers, and this weekend I strapped on my Nikes for a half-marathon! My time’s no good and I ran out of juice at the 14km mark, so I could only run/walk for most of the rest of it, but who cares? I did it! It was hot and gross and there wasn’t a cloud in sight, but I got to see a lot of Sendai, running under tree-lined boulevards and across bridges over the Hirose River. Pretty cool stuff. Boy, am I glad it’s over though. The time commitment for training was just too much for me. I can’t even imagine what I’d have to do for a full marathon. Let’s leave that for the far future.

And yes, I did wear a “Little Miss Trouble” to my first half-marathon, thank you very much!!

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時間がすぎて、そして・・・

February 6, 2012 by amanda

KYOTO, FALL 2009

A long time ago, I went to Kyoto for a little while.

It had been a few months since I had arrived in Iwate, and I was still new at… everything. I was still nervous about screwing up, about being not good enough, about being a little loser who wouldn’t make any friends. I was shy and withdrawn and hadn’t quite warmed up to cold, bitter Iwate. It wasn’t as easy, this time around. It wasn’t like being enveloped in a warm, English bubble called International House. It was like standing on a precipice called Adulthood, and I still couldn’t believe that all that had been my life up to that point was now done.

Even if I had been yearning to be back in Japan for a whole year, now that I was here, truly on my own, it wasn’t quite what I had imagined it would be. Well, I had imagined I would be a gaijin talent on Fuji TV in my college fever dreams, so there had to be quite a bit of a step down from that.

What I wanted was to start right where I had been. What I wanted was to continue that magical year where I had been free, crazy, selfish, and true. I wanted to pick up where I had started. Even as I said I was “glad” to be stationed far away from Kyoto, “so I would make more friends,” in the deepest corner of my heart, I really wished that I could have been the Kyoto City CIR. That was my city. Those were my roads, those were my well-worn paths. Even if I would be forever far away from Ritsumeikan and the ping pong circle, at least I could visit and, for one glorious week, live my life the way it was supposed to be, in my mind.

Kyoto would welcome me back. Kyoto would never change.

But I knew it once I stood in front of that old International House, on a humid day with too much sun. A building was now standing in front of my old window, where I used to look outside at the small flower field. Clothes were hanging outside. The name plaque still gleamed bronze, and the river still gurgled nearby. But this was no longer the house where I lived, no longer the house where Margaret, or Shizuka, or Amber, or Robin, or Dana lived. Not the house where Misha and Weiming would visit. It was another student’s house now, another student’s dream, and I was a stranger now, standing outside a concrete wall.

Maybe Mrs. Yamazaki still tended the flowers outside, but I didn’t have the heart to knock on the door and ask.

(more…)

Category boyz, japan, jet, navel-gazing, running | Tags: | 4 Comments
not custom-made; just internet-ordered

November 7, 2011 by amanda

see if you can find me, punks! (watermarked because i didn't buy the photo :3)

I feared it, I dreaded it, I kind of looked forward to it, I didn’t train hard enough for it…but I did it. I ran my 10k in Kamaishi, and have I been tired the last week because of it!

It was a cloudy day, but it didn’t rain and it was rather balmy for the end of October. Me and the Running Man set out early in the morning to make the long drive to the coast, flanked by reds and oranges and still-struggling-to-stay-green stragglers. Towards the end of our journey we made our way down a steep and curvy road, with signs on the edge marking off the last 14km, 15km, 16km. This, the Running Man said, was the last leg of the 17.2 km race, and right then I gave no small amount of thanks for only being entered in the 10k.

We saw my JET friends immediately (well, really, when you’re the only foreigners at a race and one of you stands twice as tall as anyone else, you tend to notice) and stuck by them most of the day. As we were milling around before the race, who should I see crane his neck to see me but Itchan. I ran over to talk to him – he was now living in Kamaishi, far away from last year and our weird, abortive courtship. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he smiled.

“I run now,” I said, smiling back. It was good to see him. It felt like the ending, somehow. It had hurt, way back when, when I realized he was the type of boy to never date a foreigner openly, and that I was only worth the shadows and the secrecy. It had hurt. But it felt like a phantom hurt now; it felt like the end of all that. How many things have began and have now ended for me here? It’s the endings more than the beginnings that feel like time is passing.

I jogged back to my friends. “Well, that was awkward. I used to date that guy. But then again, I have dated like half of Iwate, so it’s all good.”

(more…)

Category boyz, navel-gazing, running | Tags: | 2 Comments
the shame of it all

October 28, 2011 by amanda

I was getting ready to leave for the night when my boss turned and smiled at me. “Hey, I think T-san is probably in town for his 3rd year training. He hasn’t replied to our emails in a few days.”

My heart stopped. “Oh,” I feigned nonchalance, “that’s nice. He probably is. That’s around this time of year, isn’t it.” My fingers like stone, I continued to pack my things and left, hoping I wouldn’t have to talk anymore about it. I’m sure there were icicles of dread in my wake, because everyone knows about me and the crush that will. not. die.

I had a girls party that night, with plans to eat kushiyaki and caesar salad and talk about the monotony of our love lifes probably, but that was in a few hours. Wrapping my jacket tightly around me, I headed to my usual place to kill some time, my head in a fog. Ugh. Whatever about Junya. I know why he doesn’t contact me – but what about those other jerks. I haven’t heard one peep out of the lot of them since they moved. I know they have priorities, that they’re busy (busier than me!), and that there are so many other things in Morioka for them to do than hang out with some weird foreign girl. But ugh. I made them tissue pouches! What the fuck!

I know this is a thing with Japanese people to forget about friends when they move away. I can’t even front! I do the same exact thing! But maybe I’m rethinking what a jerk I may have been this whole time because seriously, this hurts. I complained about this all to an old man I was drinking with, who told me he was 80 years old and bought me flowers. The guys working at my bar laughed in the background. Yeah, son. I’ve managed to figure out how to charm the geriatrics; I just need to aim a little bit lower. Like, 60 years lower. Well, but then again, all the guys my age must be the cool kids who don’t have time for me. Why do I always feel like I’m repeating high school? (I didn’t even interact with any cool kids back then but just go with me here)

(more…)

Category a morioka for all seasons, boyz, navel-gazing, running | Tags: | No Comments
said the way it’s spelled

October 3, 2011 by amanda

Had my third race this weekend – another relay! This time it was the Oshu City International Exchange Marathon, so there was a separate division solely for teams with “at least one gaijin, any gaijin.” This gaijin did her best which resulted in us getting second place in the division! No, I’m kidding, I was again the slowest on the team (although it was flat ground, so I at least managed to run 2k in about 10 minutes). We were lucky to have both the fastest woman in her age group in Iwate (no seriously, she’s going to be the Iwate representative for a huge race in Okinawa in April), and also H-chan’s dad, who is a ridiculously skilled runner when he’s not taking photos of battlefields.

(this was a joke for those of you into Japanese variety shows – H-chan’s dad is not actually Yoichi Watanabe, but gosh is the resemblance uncanny)

Luckily, K-kun’s only a little bit faster than me so I didn’t feel so bad. Pretty proud that we got second, after all! It was a half-marathon and 10k mixed in with the relay, so we saw plenty of serious runners in their tiny shorts in 50 degreeF weather. The most beautiful man was at this marathon too, and I just about fell over when I saw him. “That’s him! The guy from the prefectural office! Look at him! He’s so… soo… fast!” But alas, he was there with his pretty wife! I was in no condition to be talking to beautiful men either – I’ve had the worst allergies of my life this season, so I think I had an asthma attack while running my short 2k. Well, that, or I just got too caught up in things and ran way too fast in the beginning to keep pace. Ahhh, the life of the eternal rookie…

So the next marathon for me is at the end of this month: a 10k in Kamaishi on the coast, on a steep, hilly course. Why oh why did I sign up for this one again…? Of course, just as I’ve start training for it, I’ve messed up my ankle and have to keep off it for a couple days. When I started this running thing, I never thought I’d actually be training hard enough to get an injury in the first place. Nor did I think I’d get suckered into a 10k so soon after my first 5k. I already know that I’m going to be walking half of it, especially since the course is apparently quite a challenge. And while I can run about 7-8k alright, it’s not pretty, and it’s not fast. I’m not really ready for a 10k, but I guess as long as I finish the course with the old grandpas I’ll be alright. No, I won’t even front – most runners in their 70s are still faster than I am.

But I guess as long as I’m left standing in the wake of the most beautiful man, I’ll suffer anything ~ <3

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