Tokyo Marathon

2007 already and the darn “.. days to go” thing on the right is relentless ( and possibly wrong – hopeless at PHP ). Tried my first run after the disastrous 2km effort prior to Mr Norovirus’s visit at Marshall Mansions…

I cycled to the Imperial Palace, about 20 mins, by means of warm up. Performed another 5 to 10 mins of stretching and general arsing around, then fitted my new and exciting Nike knee compression bandages, really the closest I’ve come to investing in personal bondage gear.

Completing the sartorial picture I also slipped on my also-new Nike training trousers and Nike running top. The trousers had previously been fully tested in a series of exhaustive activities I like to classify in my exercise log as “lounging around”. The running top was making its public debut, on account of it being a technical garment and it’s amazing, possibly even startling, orangeness.

I set off at a deliberately gentle pace – not so much to protect my knees but so as to not cause alarm to any Imperial Family members who might be innocently looking out from their windows only to have wondered who the wheezing berk in the day-glo orange top and unlikely trousers was.

Well they need not have worried. I only made it to the British Embassy, about 2km, before, again, collapsing with right knee pain. Rested and then walked back, very painfully. Nike knee-things didnt seem to make any difference, apart from adding a level of scratchiness. Oddly, knees and legs were fine on the cycle home, but immediately acutely painful once I tried to walk. Still painful now, 3 days later. What does this mean ? Can I really have invested in an running top for no reason. An orange one.

I will persevere. In the meantime, Ayako has derived some mince pies from first principles ( having first had to look them up online to ascertain what exactly they were ) and I feel honour-bound to test them for authenticity..