Inspired by my good friend Eric, who ran a half marathon today, I thought I would go for a long run (which is called for on my training schedule anyway) and decided to shoot for 21km (close enough to a half marathon for me) myself.

It also happens to be my 37th birthday. Since I’m training for the Tokyo marathon, which I’ll run with my twin sister and father, I wanted to go for a long run over the weekend. So today, after we got back from a leisurely lunch with Lisa’s friends, I headed out for a run. The plan was to run up to Rainbow bridge (which we can see from our apartment) and run across it over to Odaiba, circle around there for a bit, and head back home. That should have come out to about 20km, but when I made it to the bridge, it turns out that it is only open to pedestrian traffic from 10am to 6pm. So I was out of luck. I didn’t want to give up though, so just kept heading in towards Tokyo, and eventually through Shinbashi and Ginza. On the way home I made a slight detour to visit Tokyo tower, and then slowly made my way home.

Prior to this run, the farthest I had gone was a 16km jog last weekend (not counting a half marathon distance run in high school.) So this was a pretty long run for me. I was absolutely stuffed from lunch (we met some of Lisa’s friends from her days at Sizzler at Sizzler, and their buffet style salad bar is way too easy to overeat on.) So I had some cramps, but generally felt pretty good, until about kilometer 16 when my feet started to hurt. Just a general ache in the bones since I’m not used to this distance. I ended up buying a Pocari Sweat and mixing in some walking on the way home, but in the end I made it. And now I’m sore.

The good news is that I made 21km, I think I can (after a few more months of training) make 42km. The bad news is, man, I’m sore. Overall though, happy 37th birthday. Here’s to another healthy 37 birthdays!