Ancient news, TIWM final.

Oh... I realised I haven't even written about the Tokyo International Women's Marathon in November.... What a lazy bum I am! I will just copy and paste my report I posted to Namban list on November 20, for recording purpose at least.

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Mika TokairinTime 3:16:05

This was my 5th TIWM and so far I “tied” with the event. First one in 2004, I got cut off at 34k and swept by the bus. At the second one, I finished it with a PB 3:13:40. The third one, again I finished with a PB 3:10:07 and the last year, I faded embarrassingly and barly finished with 3:21:54.

Two wins and two losses. So if I “win” this time, I can say “I won TIWM!“, in Sumo term we call it “kachi koshi” and I wanted it this time. But with what result can I say “I won”? I was far from PB shape so I needed to set other standard and I decided the negative split should be the one since Tokyo is notorious because of the big hill at the latter part. If I can speed up at that hill I will be able to have the feeling that I finally conquered the TW’s course. Conquest, what a manly idea! But my strategy was rather unmanly. I thought if I ran the first half very slow, it should be easy to make a negative split…..

I tried to run slow, especially at the first 10km letting everyone pass me, but I should admit that I wasn’t as slow as I planned (4:40/k pace). Nevertheless the strategy seemed to have worked at the middle part of the race as I felt really easy between 9km to 25km at 4:30/k to 4:35/k pace and felt OK until 29km. However, it didn’t last after 30km. I gradually slowed down and started to suffer. When I got to the hill part around 37km, my pace went down to over 5min/k pace. I saw Namban cheering squad at the hill but there is no energy left to respond to them anymore….I felt sorry….When I came back to the stadium I had to accept the fact that I wouldn’t be able to break even 3h15m. There is less than 1 minute left for more than one lap of the track. What was worse was I even missed 3:15’s and finished 5 seconds later than 3:16.

Tokyo never let me win, forever. Defeated and disappointed. But at least I know the reasons. First, lack of training, mainly mileage, second, lack of control during the race. It’s good to know what are the issues for the next race.

Like Yoshiko, I will do Osaka Ladies Marathon at the end of January as a PB attempt race. So no time for me to look back and feel remorse, I will just keep going for the next one!!! :-

On the final note, I would like to thank all of you who supported us at the roadside, and anywhere in the world, not only for this year but in the past 5 years. You are the true driving force to kept me going and probably the thing I will miss most about this event.

5km 22:48
10km 45:55 (23:07)
15km 1:08:33 (22:38)
20km 1:31:09 (22:36)
half 1:36:07
25km 1:53:40 (22:31)
30km 2:16:31 (22:51)
35km 2:40:04 (23:33)
40km 3:05:21 (25:17)
42.2km 3:16:05 (10:44)