Tokyo 5k

Saturday was the day of the Shonan Marathon (top results here), but as I said, we missed the entry for that, so had another go at the low-key Imperial Palace circuit race that we did back in February. With little in the way of preparation, we went for the shorter 5k option this time. My time of 19:39 was about the same as the first half of my previous 10k, and achieved my main goal of ensuring that I could be in a respectable starting wave if I happen to be in Boulder on Memorial Day next year :-) The front wave would be fun, but I'm not sure where another 1m20s of speed is going to come from. Jules did 25:10 which was about what she was aiming for too.

It's a bit of an odd event as there are lots of joggers of various speeds (not to mention the pedestrians) going round the loop at the same time, so you can't really tell who else is in the race and it's hard to keep track of anyone in front. I let a speedy bunch set off at the start and hence felt like I was in a bit of a vacuum most of the way round. I think I must have overtaken a couple of them down the hill without realising they were racing, as some others finished only a few seconds back. Including a 12 year old girl. Losing to her would have been a bit of a blow to the ego.

Not sure how much help my new toy was. It did tell me I was going too fast at the start (which I already realised) which encouraged me to let the fast group race off ahead. But then it was mostly depressing on the long uphill stretch when it told me I was some way off my intended pace. It also drifted off position and got the altimetry badly wrong (there is just one steady hill, not a roller-coaster), and under-measured by about 60m assuming the course is really 20m short. But the heart rate was useful.