always loved taking naps. Anyway, I’m the type of person who, once he gets sleepy, can fall sound
asleep anywhere. Definitely a good talent to have if you want to stay healthy, but the problem is I
sometimes fall fast asleep in situations where I shouldn’t.
I’ve shed a few pounds, too, and my face looks more toned. It’s a nice feeling to see your body
going through these changes, though they certainly don’t happen as quickly as when I was young.
Changes that used to take a month and a half now take three. The amount I can exercise is going
downhill, as is the efficiency of the whole process, but what’re you going to do? I just have to accept
it, and make do with what I can get. One of the realities of life. Plus, I don’t think we should judge the
value of our lives by how efficient they are. The gym where I work out in Tokyo has a poster that says,
“Muscles are hard to get and easy to lose. Fat is easy to get and hard to lose.” A painful reality, but a
reality all the same.
In this way August waved good-bye (it really did seem like it waved), September rolled around, and
my style of training has undergone another transformation. In the three months up till now I was
basically trying to rack up the distance, not worrying about anything, but steadily increasing my pace and
running as hard as I could. And this helped me build up my overall strength: I got more stamina, built
up my muscles, spurred myself on both physically and mentally. The most important task here was to
let my body know in no uncertain terms that running this hard is just par for the course. When I say
letting it know in no uncertain terms I’m speaking figuratively, of course. No matter how much you
might command your body to perform, don’t count on it to immediately obey. The body is an extremely
practical system. You have to let it experience intermittent pain over time, and then the body will
get the point. As a result, it will willingly accept (or maybe not) the increased amount of exercise it’s
made to do. After this, you very gradually increase the upper limit of the amount of exercise you do.
Doing it gradually is important so you don’t burn out.
Now that it’s September and the race is two months away, my training is entering a period of fine-
tuning. Through modulated exercise—sometimes long, sometimes short, sometimes soft, sometimes
hard—I’m transitioning from quantity of exercise to quality. The point is to reach the peak of
exhaustion about a month before the race, so this is a critical period. In order to make any progress, I
have to listen very carefully to feedback from my body.
In August I was able to settle down in one place, Kauai, and train, but in September I’ll be taking
some long trips, back to Japan and then from Japan to Boston. In Japan I’ll be too busy to focus on
running the way I have been. I should be able to make up for not running as much, though, by
establishing a more efficient training program.
I’d really rather not talk about this—I’d much prefer to hide it away in the back of the closet—but the
last time I ran a full marathon it was awful. I’ve run a lot of races, but never one that ended up so
badly.