Tokyo Marathon

In the absense of any news, I sent an email to jtbgmt-web@jtb.jp today to ask if they could confirm if my application was successful or not. I received a reply in about an hour ….

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you may have to run 42.165 km !!!

YES !!! Oh brother. The running god has smiled on me and the JTB marathon has sent me an invite to the TOkyo marahon…….damn I had better start training !!!

I was shocked to learn that everyone around me had received an invite and not me. It took me back to school and being the last to be chosen for the football side. Or not being invited to Penny Lanes 7th birthday party.

I checked my work email account. My private email account. My secret private email account. …. I forgot about my hotmail account. Lets face it hotmail is crap and no one would ever use it for some important or serious…..BUT there it was , my invite. I feel like Charlie Bucket after he scoffs that Willy Wonker chocolate bar and finds the last of the golden ticket.

I suppose I had better start training

When will they invent a pill that you can take that makes you instantly ready for strenuous exercise…..I mean one thats legal and doesnt shrink your tackle!!

Cycled to work and back. So at least my training has started in a small way.

Queen hit it right on the nail when they sang about cycling and fat bottomed girls. Bike riding has to be one of the greatest exercises in the world. The wind in your hair, the exciting that exists in dodging obasans on the pavement and the full feeling when you take a lung full of car fumes.
Did you know it is one of the most efficient forms of transport there is ?

Up until know my body clock has been all over the place due to the jet lag. The only exercise I have done is lifting heavy food to my mouth and asking the big cheese a question. Today I cycle from Meguro Yubinkyoku to Tokyo International forum AND BACK !!! Not sure how far it is but it must be at least 50 km right ??

Can you count changing your diet as part of a training regime ? Since attending the formal dinner of the Great biritsh cheese festival I feel somewhat of a foodie. I am now prone to trying to avoid eating crap. Only the other day I refused tomato sauce on my big mac !! The dinner presented the very best in english cuisine. You may scoff and joke about fish and chips but it was probably the nicest food I have every had. Good startes, good main course and loads of fantastic cheese.

Tomorrow I plan to cycle to work and go to footsal after work. Footsal, if you know, is the poncey name for five-a-side. Great exercise and beats boring straight running. Anyone care to join me ??

Time waits for no-one.

I had the best exercise in my life yesterday, and I never even got out of my chair. The big cheese of Reuters visited the Japan office to give a presentation. It came to question and answers time and I was determined to ask a question. As I waited patiently to ask my question, to Tom and the entire company, I could feel my heart going like the clappers. Strange cause I thought with all the toastmasters experience this kind of body reaction would not have occured. So for ten minutes I could feel my heart in my throat going at what was probably 150 bpm. No risk of injury, no sweaty and no obasans to dodge in the running path. Bliss.

As for running exercise ? On your bike mate !

Just a quick one .. seems the emails notifying successful Tokyo Marathon application are now going out… though personally I haven’t received one yet

Alright, got back from Sydney yesterday and have time to share the results of the inaugral Tokyo Marathon Quiz….

Question 1 was … “What is the difference between Reza’s training regime and the item below ? ”

I knew it was too easy. The answer of course, is that there have been confirmed sightings of the radar-dodging Northrup Grumman B-2 “Stealth” bomber.

Question 2 enquired “What is the difference between Paul and Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper ?”

Now that Ms Stefanyshyn-Piper has safely returned to Earth, and I have made the surely equally daunting safe return from Sydney to Tokyo, I think it is safe to proceed with the answer to this one. Ms Stefanyshyn-Piper is, as you know, a NASA astronaut, and has to eat food from a vacuum-sealed tin bag by necessity. Paul, as you suspect, ate the same out of choice. Yes I fell for the shiny pack of ‘performance’ gloop sold in the convenience store, promising a bewildering cocktail of scientific goodness. I ate it while running a 15km, and .. well, if it wasnt composed entirely of mushed up pineapple it really should have been. It was .. edible, in a reminds-me-of-childhood way. Baby food wrapped into an adult-attracting package. Genius.