MARCH 2012

LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD

MARCH

• Starting our monthly review in the US, on the 4th, Brent Millican ran a PB of 3:12:41 in the Napa Valley Marathon.
• Another big city marathon debuted on the 11th — Kyoto, which included a Namban contingent of 7. James Midgely led the way with a 3:12, followed by Carol Cunningham in 3:35, Mary Eckstein in 3:53, Paul Mundt in 3:54, Elsie DeLorenzo in 3:58. Pat Higase in 4:30, and Adrian Ringin in 4:50. Suni Kim, Yukiko Kurihara and Anthony Kraft also ran. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the journey through Kyoko, despite being stopped for about 6 minutes due to an ambulance having to enter and exit the course…poor planning.
• Also on the 11th was the Ohyama Tozan Hill Climb, a 9km uphill race. This year’s Namban group was smaller than usual, but we were still well represented by Keren Miers, 7th out of 418 in men’s 50s in 50:18, Stan Chow in 58:46 and Tom Boatman (running his 10th Ohyama!) in 1:02, good for 178th our of 560 40s men. AND, all three did it two weeks after running the Tokyo Marathon!
• Jon and Tamami Holmes (congratulations on getting married!) ran the Itabashi City Marathon 5K on the 18th. Tamami finished 14th out of 418 women in 22:50 and Jon was 29th out of 439 men in 21:00.
• The wonderfully named Vegetable Marathon, featuring free vegetables and vegetable juice, was held on Yumenoshima, reclaimed Tokyo Bay land, on the 18th. Jay Johannesen, Bernd Plagge and Chika Kanai ran the Half, Jay finishing 15th out of 1,504 in 1:20:38, Bernd running 1:29:11 and Chika running 1:35:46 for 7th out of 337 women…on her birthday! Five others ran the 10K: George Nicholson in 37:07, Chris Parry in 42:20, Kazuo Chiba in 52:30, and Naoko Hanakawa in 51:01 (18th woman).
• Thomas Sawada ran the hilly Sakura Asahi Marathon (Chiba pref.) on the 25th, finishing in a personal best of 4:29. Congratulations!
• Back to the US, on the 18th Russ Stram ran the New York City Half in 1:46, and remember Katarina Janosikova? She ran 1:15:50 to finish 29th in this major race.
• Also on the 25th, our big-time Ironman, Tsutomu Ishida, was down in Australia for Ironman Melbourne. He had a good result, coming through the full ironman distance in 9:32:22, a PB of 20 minutes, which included a marathon of 3:09:53! He was 14th in his age group (M45-49, which obviously has tough guys) and 141st overall. Nine from this group were eligible for the Ironman World Championships in Kona, but since 5 opted not to go, Tsutomu will be participating. Best of luck to him!

APRIL

All Namban workouts at Oda Field from 7:25pm.
• 4 Namban workout 1000 x 6
• 8 Hitachi Sakura 10K (Bob P, Steve B, +?)
• 11 Namban workout 1600 1200 1000 1000 800 400
• 15 Nagano Marathon (Steve L, Paddy O, Anthony K, Derek L)
• 18 Namban workout 1200 800 1000 800 1000 800 400
• 25 Namban workout 5000m TT

HAIKU OF THE MONTH

First, a March haiku from Chiba-san:
March: Girl’s Festival
And the joy of peach flowers —
Running with fragrance

And mine for April:
Cherry blossoms bloom
Sit beneath drinking, singing,
Freezing your ass off