The Mahoroba Marathon

 
I've spent the past week in Japan with my wife's family in a small town named Takahata.  Takahata is in the southern part of Yamagata Prefecture, in northern Japan, which the Japanese refer to as "do-inaka", or "hick land".  The population of 30,000 or so people are scattered around a small rice-filled valley and a small mountain range to the east.  My wife's house is about as far into the mountains you can go before rice fields and grape vineyards stop and forest begins.  Every night monkeys try to steal grapes from the vineyards, and every morning on my run my mother-in-law is careful to warn me to watch out for bears. 

For a small town, Takahata has a surprising amount of historical and culturally significant places.  There is the Kameokamonju Temple, where students come to pray for success in their school entrance exams, and the 500 Rakan at Gyokuryu-In, statues of Buddha's desciples brought up to the area hundreds of years ago.  And of course the dog and cat shrines--the only ones in Japan--where people come to pay their respects to lost pets.  Add to that its winery--somewhat rare in a country that drinks mostly sake--and its train station with an onsen (public hot spring bath), and it proudly refers to itself as "Mahoroba no sato, Takahata".  This translates roughly to, "An exceedingly great place to live surrounded by mountains and hills, Takahata".

I spent most of my time at my wife's family's milk farm.  We helped with gathering the bails of grass for the cows, going from field to field and tossing them into a truck and then into the barn.  I climbed the mountains in search of the elusive matsutake mushroom, which grows for only one month and can fetch as much as $100 for a few ounces (we didn't find any).  We ate imoni (a northern Japanese stew) and freshly picked grapes and pears and watched lots of sumo.  It was "Nihon mankitsu": The full Japanese experience.

And of course, we ran the Takahata Road Race, also known as the Mahoroba Marathon, or "An exceedingly great marathon surrounded by mountains and hills."  Seven years ago, soon after coming to Japan fresh out of college, I ran the 5k race and set a course record of 16:13.  For my efforts I received four trophies and a hand-written certificate in beautiful script.  (Photo of me next to the trophy with my name on the ribbon.  I wrote about the experience briefly here .)  What I didn't know at the time was that serious adults only run the 10k and up, leaving the 5k to the high schoolers.  So I basically broke protocol and crushed some aspiring high school champion's dreams.  (Sidenote: they've since changed the awards to include both high schoolers and adults, so maybe my time in Japan did make a difference.)

Every town in Japan has a road race, but Japanese road races aren't like road races in the States.  Japanese people don't subscribe to the notion of a "fun run".  Whereas local road races in the US often have hundreds (if not thousands) of people jogging them, people in Japan either race it or cheer from the side. Since I imagine most people have never run a Japanese road race, here's a brief overview of how it goes.

The race day officially starts at 9am with the kaikaishiki, or opening ceremony.  Anyone junior high age or younger has probably been warming up for quite a while already, however.  At the start of the ceremony, all student-athletes finish their warm-ups and sit cross-legged on the asphalt in the parking lot while a number of old men talk about how important the race is and how it is essential that you give it your all.  (Older runners often skip this.)  They also introduce the headlining guest--this year was Shigeru Aburaya, who finished 5th in the Athens Olympic marathon--and everybody agrees to do their best.  (The most common word you hear at a race is "ganbaru", which is used much the same as good luck in English, but etymologically refers to giving it your best effort.)



After the 30 minute kaikaishiki (or longer, if the old guys are particularly long-winded), the runners are all dismissed and they gather on the starting line, in this case for the kids 3k.  The kids are an interesting mix of athletes...baseball players, volleyball players, the local trampoline club, and even a few runners, all dressed in the uniforms of their school clubs.  Most of the kids in town are encouraged/forced to enter.  In America local cheerleaders are often brought out to cheer along the course.  In Japan they are volleyball players and they are told to get in the race.

The boys race kicked off at 10am, and the girls at 10:01am.  Having warmed up thoroughly, they were all asked to then sit or stand around for one hour before running, while parents, coaches, and spectators all exhorted them to do their best.  It should be noted that the only person this seemed to bother was me.

The first adult race to go off was the half marathon, at 10:40.  It was followed by the 5k at 10:50, and the 10k at 11:20.  I was entered in the 5k and finished 7th overall, 3rd in the men's adult division.  I was beaten by three women, including Kaori Kumasaka, who won the race outright in 16:45.  I ran 17:21, but was pretty much done after going out in 3:07 for the first kilometer, not having run that fast in months.  To give a hint as to the quality of the 5k field, I think the top 5-10 runners in both the 10k and half marathon ran a faster pace than the men's top finisher in the 5k. 

Two more odd things.  First, they don't shut down the roads.  Cars just drive past you when there's an opening, and people work the intersections to let them know when they can go.  This would be uncomfortable in the States, but in Japan everybody drives tiny cars at super slow speeds, so it wasn't that bad.  Second, they offered water at the 3k marker, but only if you were among the faster runners.  My wife, who ran about 29 minutes in her first 5k ever (a personal best!), was told they didn't have water for her.  When she said she needed some, they reluctantly gave her a "special cup".  Like I said, at Japanese races, joggers need not apply.

Similarly, there are no booths at the finish of a Japanese race, with people mulling around getting free stuff.  There was one booth, giving a Weider "In Jelly" to all participants.  These are semi-solid juices equivalent to a PowerBar.  Or, as they advertise, they give the same amount of energy as a rice ball.  After you pick up your jelly, you walk over to another booth that automatically prints you out an award certificate with your name, time, and place on it.  This is actually pretty cool, and not something I've seen at a US race.

Once all the races had concluded--for those curious, Aburaya (right) finished 3rd in the half marathon, losing to two local studs--they held the award ceremony.  The top finishers all come and sit on the asphalt and wait to be called up onto the podium.  They awarded six deep (used to be three), with the top three getting medals and 4th through 6th getting plaques.  Oddly, the winner of each division got one trophy (as opposed to the four I received), a bottle of Takahata wine and some Mizuno sports gear.

Honestly, for any foreigner running in a random Japanese road race, the oddest thing is the attention you receive.  With 300 or 400 competitors, I was the only foreigner at the race.  As my father-in-law joked, when I run, it's an "international marathon".  But the true hallmark of a Japanese race is the the effort expended by each and every athlete.  After all, Japan doesn't do fun runs, they run races.

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