This is one of those weeks when I prove to myself how far I can push myself, physically. Today is a national holiday (Respect for the Aged Day), as is this coming Friday (Autumnal Equinox), so we have only 3 days of work sandwiched between two 3-day weekends (ah, could it always be this way..). As I sit typing, I am the lull between my two action packed weekends. This past weekend Tom and I headed out to the Izu Penninsula, training and busing out to Shimoda, the city on the very tip of the the penninsula where Commodore Perry first set foot in Japan after crossing the ocean in his great black ships.

Shimoda looks nothing like it did then. I wasn't there but I can assure you it looks like any other Japanese town today; the first thing I saw when I exited the station was McDonalds. The second was probably the Baskin Robbins. The coast is beautiful though, and that's where we spent the weekend. We were there with about 20 other runners from our hash group (the folks I run through Tokyo with every week). The weekend started off with a satisfying and impressive bowl of ramen topped with the largest shrimp I've ever seen (lobster sized without the pinchers). Then we all got changed and started Run #1. Almost 4 hours later, we finished. And I wish I were kidding...honestly. We ran past beautiful coastline, over boulders and crabs, through both man-made and ocean formed tunnels, up several bamboo forested mountain-hills and under more than enough branches, cobwebs and fences. It was by far the most scenic run I've done and considering my regular runs have been done around Tokyo Tower and the Imperial Palace lately, that's kind of saying a lot! The trail leaders allowed us a water/beer stop about an hour into the run. I would have been very happy had this been the end of our trek, but I knew we'd been following the coast straight out of town (well, not so straight) so we were nowhere near "home". At about the 3 hour point Tom and I ended up walking for about a half hour... It was obvious our fearless leaders had made some critical navigational errors. With no choice but to continue on, we slugged on ahead up and down the lonely forest roads until we very slowly returned to town. I was thrilled to see that the run ended up at the beach and ran right into the fairly frigid waves. Ahhhhhhhhh. Turns out we "ran" about 18k. That's almost my half-marathon right there!

And as if that wasn't enough, we ran the next day too!! The Sunday trail leader promised a "short" run... which really turned out to be 10k (6 miles... not so short) and I was pretty happy to finish that one still running. Unfortunately the two runs completely tore up the skin on the insides of my thighs (chafage!!) so I (oh so sadly) sat out today's run... the third in three days. This one actually was short (under an hour!) but I just couldn't do it. Amazingly there were only 3 other people that sat out. This group is hard core, let me tell you. It was a really fun trip but I am just pooped! I cannot wait to climb into bed tonight.

And of course, I must rest up and heal quickly because Thursday night we will be boarding the night bus from Shinjuku (downtown Tokyo) out to Kamikochi for our 3 day mountain hike. I am still quite anxious about my own preparedness for this trip... but I am also very much looking forward to it. I just need to continue praying for clear weather. The weather this weekend was incredible and it seems somewhat overly optimistic to hope for a repeat... but watch me try!