Tokyo Marathon

Another week and another survey, this time concluding that a ‘majority’ of the population of the UK ( yes, including kids ) will be obese in 40 years. Given the previous survey where us hardy British felt we could garden or housework our way to a healthy life, it is perhaps not suprising.

Conclusion of this particular review was that “..human biology is simply out of step with modern life in the 21st century, with its labour-saving devices, motorised transport, sedentary work and cheap high energy foods”

My options :

• Spend less time reading these surveys and more time running/swimming/cycling
• Do nothing and hope global warming gets me first
• Write a 21st century followup to this, adding some wizards for commercial viability obviously ..

Survey detail in today’s papers

I read Dean Karnazes book, and I believe he started out running when a young boy. So .. on the theme of vigour beating sloth and youth beating age, here is someone getting in the training zone at a young age…

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Dean’s book, by the way, is a great one. Only drawback perhaps, is the humble tone than leads the unwary ( you know who you are.. ) to believe they could just get up, order some pizza-on-the-hoof, and run a hundred miles.

Just a minor post really but it seems that the Ultramarathon man was / is / will be in Japan.

I guess we need to purchase the magazine for more details.

“.. 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day recommended by [UK] Government guidelines are not enough to ward off heart disease, diabetes or certain cancers, according to scientists. [ ... ] short bursts of more intense activity, such as running or competitive sports, would be more beneficial, it was claimed.”

Seems that a majority of UK adults ( according to a poll of more than a 1000 ) believe that ‘moderate exercise’ is better than vigourous exercise. Moderate exercise would apparently mean “brisk walking” to the government, but in the surveyed participants it appeared to be interpreted as inclusive of such activities as housework and gardening.

Fooling ourselves, or fooled by ‘interpretable’ advice from the UK government ? Full article in The Telegraph and other UK newspapers today.

Received overnight :

Dear Sir or Madam （ID No.[deleted]）

Congratulations! You have been selected to run the 2008 Tokyo marathon.
To secure your place, simply access the URL below to arrange payment
of the entry fee no later than October 26 2007,
and the confirmation will be sent out in November.

etc etc

If you have any questions, please contact us by e-mail.
tokyomarathon-entry@jtb.jp

Well… having considered everything, not just in the light of this weeks poor performance but the fact that I havent been able to run since November 2006, I’ve decided to pull out.

Paul

ps.. for anyone waiting for the email – it was marked as spam by my mailhost. The sender is tokyomarathon2008@news.jtb.co.jp, in case you want to add that to your address-book or “whitelisted” addresses.

Alright I promised an update, so ..

I managed the 5Km. Ran with Joe, made it all around the Palace. Achingly slow time. Knee initially gave in after about 500 metres. I adjusted my new and exciting knee strap, pushing the pressure-tube (?) bit more to the outside … and the pain went. It was bizarre. The knee strap is one of these..

They are cheap – definitely recommend trying one if you have a similar knee problem. The non-adjustable Nike knee compression thing I previously used had no effect – I threw it away. This one though, seems to be the business.

Anyway, all was not completely good. The pain was definitely noticeable again by about 4Km, and though I made the full 5Km, the walk home was excruciating. Need to go slowly on this. Almost certainly not going to be entering the marathon, but will consider.