Turtle Marathon (half&10k)

Today, a bigger group of runners ran the Turtle half-marathon cum 10k at Arakawa River near Kita-Senju. This is a very big race, about 16000 runners, 12000 in the half, 4000 in the 10k.

As some of us went there by themselves, I could not get everybody's results, so forgive me if I start  with my own race, the 10k. My target was a 4min/k pace, so Takashi Nobukiyo, our Hakone-hardened ex-pro, flew by me a short time after we head out into the blazing sun - it was unusually hot for October. I settled in with a group, running my splits according to my Garmin, leaving the fastest woman behind - not used to that anymore. At about 3.5k, an odd thing happened. At a water station, there were so many people that I could hardly pass and had to slow down to a jog. I realized we had run into the slowest of the half-marathon runners. To make things worse, my Garmin's screen went blank - no batteries! Well, I did my best, and got into a nice stride on the last 3k, when we were free to run fast again, passing even a few people. At the finish, the clock said 41:38, initially, I felt upset. But then I realized that Takashi had beaten me by just about 90 seconds (40:04), and I had come in top 40 - of 4000 (?). Well I am not so unhappy anymore!

In the half, veteran Bernd Plagge did great in 1:33(!!!), beating Robert Hirst (about 1:38?), Padraig MacColgan, Anthony Kraft, Paul Mundt and Tony Boyle - all a bit over 1:40. Then there were Jon Holmes and Christophe Dewulfe, coaching his wife in under 2h, and Annizam Morthar in 2:15.

We still had to wait for another hour for our only Hongkong member, Lynne Yu, who had fainted, like many others, and finished, after a break at the 20k mark, in 3:15! Congratulations to Lynne and all to a gutsy performance an a dangerously hot day - jogging along the course I saw about five people who were being assisted by staff after falling or passing out due to the heat!

In the 5k, "Flying Frank", Frank-Arnoud Mehl finished 3rd in 18:50, great place, slow time, so you know how the conditions were. Picture below show him on his way to the goal.