Why We Run....

Rain was pelting the narrow streets of Dogo as my friend Kurihara and I left the local high school gym where we had just played volleyball in our Saturday evening PTA league. "I sink race cancelled," he said looking at the sky as a howling wind turned his umbrella inside out. The next morning we were both to run a Sunday road race in nearby Iyo City. This was an event substituting for the one I had really wanted to run---the Shikoku 10K championship--but alas, the registration deadline for that had passed and so Kurihara had somehow dredged up this local race as an alternative. He had entered the 1K and I had opted for the "long run"--a 3K. I was surprised to hear that weather might cancel a race. In my experience anyway that never happens in the U.S. (especially Ithaca) where races are run in every conceivable condition. So as the wind shook the glass doors of our apartment that night, I went to bed thinking that Sunday would be a vastly different day than I had imagined.

It was. The day dawned cloudy in Matsuyama but a bright blue sky was clear in the south over Iyo City. Sure enough, Kurihara called at 8:00 a.m. to say the race was a go and off we went--we two aging stallions plus our support team, Jan and his wife Fumi Kurihara. Since the race was to be staged about a mile from our zen temple Fuku-den-ji, Jan and Fumi walked to the temple while Kurihara and I jogged to the race staging area. It was a junior high school with no obvious porta-potties in sight. As any runner reading this knows, elimination strategy, as it were, is a major pre-race concern, especially if you're like me and drink at least 5 big cups of strong green tea before every competition. The matter had become quite, well, pressing, as I waited in line at the registration tables. Kurihara had disappeared as is sometimes his wont which was a big problem for me since as a Jewish person I have trouble even acknowledging the fact that people have to, you know, go to the bathroom or whatever and I'll be damned if I was going to go up to a Japanese person I didn't know and act out my request. Fortunately he reappeared just as I completed registration and I was able to mumble, "Kurihara-san, toilet, one-gai-shimasu!" It turned out to be about 10 feet away from me and THAT is yet another reason why I am finally trying to learn how to read basic signs around here.

That duty completed, as it were, it was time for my next pre-race ritual--peering at people likely to be opponents, namely the bald, the gray, the lame and halt at this point for me. There were more than a few likely customers, most of them wearing running suits, plus a bunch of kids wearing baseball uniforms. Obviously there was going to be a "fun run" for the kids before the main event. (I've always balked at that term "fun run." I mean if it's fun, you aren't running hard, right!) A few of the competitors were smoking prior to the race, something I've seen before in Japan and it's something I love because it probably means I get to do something I rarely have a chance to--kick BUTT in a road race(!)

A horn sounds and Kurihara motions me into the gym where the entire field is lining up in rows single file. I've only been to a few Japanese races but what always seems to happen is everybody lines up to hear ringing speeches by officials and then the entire group including the speakers who are always nattily attired is led in a series of exercises by a coach in a gym suit. Today was no exception. After 6 speeches (the last one from the principal of the school, Mr. Kurihara informs me), a supple-looking young lady in a white exercise suit leaps to the stage and leads us all in stretching exercise climaxed by about 10 minutes of Tai Chi which was just glorious. It's so much fun to see the school principal doing all the exercises next to little lads in
baseball caps and uniforms doing exactly the same thing.

But now it's time to run and I'm getting excited. The first race, Kurihara's 1K is in 10 minutes. We walk out to the staging area and there is the usual bustle of people roping off the finishing area, a loudspeaker being set up, a few runners warming up. About 25 kids who couldn't be more than 10 are at the starting line. Something is weird. I look at Kurihara and jokingly ask him if he thinks he can beat any of these little guys and he is looking serious and suddenly I realize this IS his race. There are 4 adults in his heat and 25 kids. Obviously the more serious people like me are waiting for the 3K. The gun goes off and Kurihara at the back of the pack follows 25 little fellows in baseball hats on to a road winding up a hill. (I hasten to add for the
edification of any runners reading this. that Kurihara is not a "runner," in the sense that he trains. He does jog a few times a week and is a terrific athlete, but running is not his thing. That would be golf and more on that in a subsequent posting.) Anyway, that said, I'm at the finish waiting for the leaders to round the bend and then there are about 10 little tiny kids followed by a huffing puffing Kurihara who has, indeed, copped First Adult.

I meet him at the end of the chute, congratulate him and then ask him to hold my sweats because it's almost time for my race. I mosey over to the start and see about 25 kids (about 12-14 years old) wearing baseball uniforms. There a few other men, but that's it.... Nada. Nobody home. Like it or not, I'm in...God help me...a FUN RUN!

It turns out just about all the "competitors" I had been sizing up during the warm-ups were just parents wearing running suits which are ubiquitous in Japan. I look around for a hole to crawl into. Perhaps aliens will abduct me at this moment. Wait a minute, wouldn't this be a GREAT time for an earthquake? But, no, it's me, 4 other men, two of whom are smoking, and 25 kids in baseball hats! I am 54 years old. I am the ONLY person in the race wearing shorts, not to mention a High Noon singlet. There is one other guy with gray hair but he is putting out his pre-race cigarette when I shoot Jan who has just returned from the temple a horrified smile. She in turn looks at me like I am wearing a Little Red Riding Hood outfit or a Godzilla suit at a Presidential Reception. There is just NO way out of this...no way but to run.

So I did. The gun goes off and I follow 25 boys in baseball uniforms up the windy mountain road. I'm wondering how to finish this thing with at least a smidgeon of honor intact. I mean I could just drop out and run home, but Iyo City is about 15 miles from Matusyama and frankly there are NEVER any 54 year old men wearing little running shorts and racing singlets who can't speak the language and don't have a single yen in their pants at any given moment in this area. I might well have been arrested on suspicion of being a nut (okay, no comments!)I decide the least embarrassing approach is win my age group and finish 4th behind the first three ballplayers. Well, I've won my age group about 25 yards out of the gate so, that rather modest goal accomplished, I pick my way ahead through the pack of fledging Ichiro's and pull in behind number runner #5. The leader really is a pretty good runner with a nice stride. He is bigger and stronger than his teammates and he has the look of a winner. (Ironically it is a BEAUTIFUL course, snaking through rice fields, beds of daikon and cabbage, and some of the prettiest broccoli I've ever seen. You knew this was going to be about food at some point, right?) The wind has blown the clouds away and you can see the roiling Inland Sea about 5 miles away, the islands masking Hiroshima looming in the bright blue distance.

Things are working out for me as planned until about the end of the first mile when suddenly it appears that runners #2,3 and 4 have each just been handed a piano, as a legendary runner Rick Cleary once put it, and they are now kind of staggering instead of running. I really have no choice but to put myself about 15 yards behind the leader and just enjoy the scenery. Then this kid puts a move on and it starts to get fun. I get within 10 or so. He hears me behind him, shoots me a startled look, and surges again. At about 300 yards from the finish, his right shoelace comes untied. Having made this mistake myself about 24 years ago in a race (and now I ALWAYS tie triple knots)I felt sorry for him and backed off. To his credit he kept up his pace, just widening his stride so he would lessen the chances of stepping on his shoelace. About 25 yards from the finish, I figured I might as well push a little and make him earn his victory. But as I crept up on his right side, damned if he didn't move over and even poke an elbow out at me to keep me back. Now of course if this had been a real race, I probably would have stepped on his trailing shoe lace, (well, not really, but you shouldn't elbow people in a race). However this was, after all, a FUN RUN, so I backed off and we finished a few yards apart.

He turned around to me in the chute, said something that I couldn't understand (probably,"Old men shouldn't look so foolish, you should be terribly ashamed!") and bowed to me slightly. I bowed back and then tried to pass through the finish area as quickly as possible so we could leave before the awards. But Kurihara would have none of that. Any race that starts with speeches from school officials takes its awards ceremony pretty seriously I guess and sure enough, we both had to trot up there, Kurihara for First Adult in the 1K and me for First Adult in the 3K.

And when I think about it, this race really did live up to its name. It was a run...and it sure was fun.