go to a pool.
After I closed my bar, I thought I’d change my lifestyle entirely, so we moved out to Narashino, in
Chiba Prefecture. At the time it was pretty rural, and there weren’t any decent sports facilities around.
But they did have roads. There was a Self-Defense Force base nearby, so they kept the roads well
maintained for their vehicles. And luckily there was also a training ground in the neighborhood owned
by Nihon University, and if I went early in the morning I could freely use—or perhaps I should say
borrow without permission—their track. So I didn’t have to think too much about which sport to choose—
not that I had much of a choice—when I decided to go running.
Not long after that I also gave up smoking. Giving up smoking was a kind of natural result of
running every day. It wasn’t easy to quit, but I couldn’t very well keep on smoking and continue
running. This natural desire to run even more became a powerful motivation for me to not go back to
smoking, and a great help in overcoming the withdrawal symptoms. Quitting smoking was like a
symbolic gesture of farewell to the life I used to lead.
I never disliked long-distance running. When I was at school I never much cared for gym class, and
always hated Sports Day. This was because these were forced on me from above. I never could stand
being forced to do something I didn’t want to do at a time I didn’t want to do it. Whenever I was able
to do something I liked to do, though, when I wanted to do it, and the way I wanted to do it, I’d give it
everything I had. Since I wasn’t that athletic or coordinated, I wasn’t good at the kind of sports where
things are decided in a flash. Long-distance running and swimming suit my personality better. I was
always kind of aware of this, which might explain why I was able to smoothly incorporate running
into my daily life.
If you’ll allow me to take a slight detour from running, I think I can say the same thing about me
and studying. From elementary school up to college I was never interested in things I was forced to
study. I told myself it was something that had to be done, so I wasn’t a total slacker and was able to go
on to college, but never once did I find studying exciting. As a result, though my grades weren’t the
kind you have to hide from people, I don’t have any memory of being praised for getting a good grade
or being the best in anything. I only began to enjoy studying after I got through the educational system
and became a so-called member of society. If something interested me, and I could study it at my own
pace and approach it the way I liked, I was pretty efficient at acquiring knowledge and skills. The art
of translation is a good example. I learned it on my own, the pay-as-you-go method. It takes a lot of
time to acquire a skill this way, and you go through a lot of trial and error, but what you learn sticks with
you.
The happiest thing about becoming a professional writer was that I could go to bed early and get up
early. When I was running the bar I often didn’t get to sleep until nearly dawn. The bar closed at
twelve, but then I had to clean up, go over the receipts, sit and talk, have a drink to relax. Do all that
and before you know it, it’s three a.m. and sunrise is just around the corner. Often I’d be sitting at my
kitchen table, writing, when it would start to get light outside. Naturally, when I finally woke up the
sun was already high in the sky.