This race took place in Chiba Prefecture. Up to around the eighteenth mile I was going along at a
good enough clip, and I was sure I’d run a decent time. I had plenty of stamina left, so I was positive I
could finish the rest of the race with no problem. But just as I was thinking this, my legs suddenly
stopped following orders. They began to cramp up, and it got so bad I couldn’t run anymore. I tried
stretching, but the back of my thighs wouldn’t stop trembling, and finally cramped up into this weird
knot. I couldn’t even stand up, and before I knew it I was squatting down beside the road. I’d had
cramps in other races, but as long as I stretched for a while, about five minutes was all it took for my
muscles to get back to normal and me to get back in the race. But now no matter how much time
passed, the cramps wouldn’t go away. At one point I thought it’d gotten better and I began to run
again, but sure enough the cramps returned. So the last three miles or so I had to walk. This was the
first time I’d ever walked a marathon instead of running. Up till then I’d made it a point of pride that
no matter how hard things might get, I never walked. A marathon is a running event, after all, not a
walking event. But in that one race, even walking was a problem. The thought crossed my mind a few
times that maybe I should give up and hitch a ride on one of the event shuttle buses. My time was
going to be awful anyway, I thought, so why not just throw in the towel? But dropping out was the last
thing I wanted to do. I might be reduced to crawling, but I was going to make it to the finish line on
my own steam.
Other runners kept passing me, but I limped on, grimacing in pain. The numbers on my digital
watch kept mercilessly ticking away. Wind blew in from the ocean, and the sweat on my shirt got cold
and felt freezing. This was a winter race, after all. You’d better believe it’s cold hobbling down a road
with the wind whipping by while you’re dressed only in a tank top and shorts. Your body warms up
considerably as you run, and you don’t feel the cold; I was shocked by how cold it was once I stopped
running. But what I felt much more than the cold was wounded pride, and how pitiful I looked
tottering down a marathon course. About a mile from the finish line my cramps finally let up and I
was able to run again. I slowly jogged for a while until I got back in form, then sped down the home
stretch as hard as I could. My time, though, was indeed awful, as predicted.
There are three reasons I failed. Not enough training. Not enough training. And not enough training.
That’s it in a word. Not enough overall exercise, plus not getting my weight down. Without knowing
it, I’d developed a sort of arrogant attitude, convinced that just a fair-to-middling amount of training
was enough for me to do a good job. It’s pretty thin, the wall separating healthy confidence and
unhealthy pride. When I was young, maybe just a fair-to-middling amount of training would have
been enough for me to run a marathon. Without driving myself too hard in training, I could have
banked on the strength I’d already built up to see me through and run a good time. Sadly, though, I’m
no longer young. I’m getting to the age where you really do get only what you pay for.
As I ran this race I felt I never, ever wanted to go through that again. Freeze my butt off and feel
miserable? I’ll pass. Right then and there I decided that before my next marathon I was going to go
back to the basics, start from scratch, and do the very best I could. Train meticulously and rediscover
what I was physically capable of. Tighten up all the loose screws, one by one. Do all that and see what
happens. These were my thoughts as I dragged my cramped legs through the freezing wind, one runner
after another passing me by.
As I’ve said, I’m not a very competitive type of person. To a certain extent, I figured, it’s
sometimes hard to avoid losing. Nobody’s going to win all the time. On the highway of life you can’t