Don't ask why...

But not only have I signed up, but I have actually succeeded in the lottery, for a place in next year's Tokyo Marathon.

Yup, on 28th February 2010 Iwill strap on a pair of running shoes and slog round 26miles, or about 42 kilometers, of Tokyo's finest urban sprawl. I will be aiming to do this in less than 5 hours and then aim to recover in less than 5 weeks. My aims may be lofty, but I think I can reach them...

I have been asking myselfwhy I should sign up for this kind of nonsense and think it is the responsibility of my mate Dave who... (aside, everyone in the world has, according to an immutable universal law, a mate called Dave. These Dave characters do stuff so their mates can begin stories with 'well, my mate Dave who...'. But it does beg the question, do people called Dave have mates called Dave...?). Anyway my mate Dave who lives in Bangkok and who has done the Bangkok marathon twice was over in Japan a while back and during a drunken conversation a plan was hatched that we would do the Tokyo marathon with Steve as well. Now Steve totally denies he ever agreed to it and I'm not sure Dave ever applied, but I did and I'm in.

I have been running at weekends (and the odd evening) for a good few years now, indeed my MBA was written on the back on 5K runs on Sunday afternoons - very good for clearing the mind of clutter, I usually started the run with a question or a 'how am I going to do this tricky bit of [plagiarism/editorial vandalism/statistics]?' and by the end I would have had an epiphany and the next section would be written.

But big jump from a 5K on a Sunday afternoon to 42K on Sunday morning, but we'll give it a crack. I've already started regular evening runs and will start upping my weekend distances soon. I may even drastically cut my alcohol intake from January onwards! Yes, it's that serious...

Anyway, that means that this blog will now become my online journal of running and pain. I shall log runs, times and all that stuff, along with breathtaking insights on how really dull it is (apparently) to run by yourself for 20 or 30 kilometers.

So tonight, 5.3Km, 26m 59s, slight precipitation in the air with some thunder and lightning, along the riverbank. Pain factor 2/10, felt pretty good but disappointed with the time (best is 25m 05s) as thought it was faster, some right knee issues whilst running but nothing severe.