Nambanners Enjoy the Fruits, and Fruit Products, of Katsunuma.

Fruit products meaning, as you can see in the photo above, wine. The occasion was the Koshu Fruit & Wine Marathon, held in the wine country of Katsunuma in Yamanashi prefecture. This event consists of 10K, Half and 23K races, all of which are extremely hilly. And they’re even more difficult if you have been to the wine tasting festivities the day before (and more so if you rode a bike 60K to get there).
In any case, 15 Nambanners took up the challenge and did quite well, with Carolyn Kim, Chika Kanai, Mike Rayner and Rie Onodera all earning top ten finishes, plus Harrisson Uk placing 13th overall in the 23K. Each participant received a bottle of wine, none of which survived the trip back to Tokyo on the “Wine Train”, as evidenced by the photo (for some reason, the participants themselves were not able to pose for a photo). Seems like it was a fun trip.