I ran in the Himeji Jokomachi Marathon, which is a 5km race around the castle.I did quite well at this race last year, but this year was a little trickier because I was still dealing with my calf injury.
It had stabilized, and I was able to run on the treadmill in Cambodia some, but it still bothered me. Despite that, it had improved enough to where I thought I could actually race on it without holding back, unlike at Kakogawa a few weeks prior. In this race, I could feel that my calf was tight, but I didn't think it was slowing me down. On the other hand, I wasn't able to get going too quickly, which I attributed to not being in terrific shape. My training wasn't as strong this fall as the previous year, so it made sense to me that I ran slower. I was disappointed in how much slower, however. To add a little visual flair to my disappointing race, as I turned the corner
for the final straight, I slipped and fell. It wasn't a big deal; my foot just slipped on the dirt. I had plenty of time to prepare myself to hit the ground and nothing was hurt. I must have made it
look good, though, because Chelsey was worried about it after the race. When I fell, I rolled off to the side of the course to avoid get trampled by any runners who might have been coming behind me, so that might have made it look like a worse fall than it was.I had good fan support for the second year in a row. Chelsey and our friends Yumi and Megumi had signs and got around to see me in several places on the course. I was disappointed I couldn't run better for them. After the race Chelsey said she could see that my stride wasn't right, so
maybe my calf was affecting me more than I thought. Remember that thought for a couple of blog posts coming up ...
-Jason
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