July 10, 1983, Sunday
I have just about one more month to go! It will be kind of nice to get back to a more normal routine. I miss wearing regular clothes. I miss music. I miss not being tired all the time.
It was another surprisingly cold day for summertime. I left Komatsu at 8:15am on a partly cloudy day. I had a long run ahead of me--over 70km of road. I was not enjoying the running today at all. It was just way too long! I am starting to think that approximately 50km is just about the right amount of distance to run now without wiping myself out. What a difference an additional 20+km can make.
Tonight I am staying in a Youth Hostel in the town of Takaoka, the second largest city in Toyama Prefecture. If you take a look on a map, you'll find Takaoka in the center of the Japanese archipelago along the Sea of Japan, at latitude 36 north and longitude 137 east (See Photo). It is almost on the same latitude as San Francisco, Beijing, and Athens.
When I was lightening the load of my backpack the other day, I had sent my Youth Hostel card along with my other "non-essentials." The lady at the Youth Hostel gave me a hard time about not having a card. After a while, the lady let me slide but she had to make sure that I received an ample dose of stress to add to my already depleted body and mind after running 70+km.
I had arrived at the Youth Hostel at 6:50pm today, the latest finish so far. This does not give me as much time as I want to do my post-run routine (washing, eating, writing, etc.) before going to bed. Every little bit of rest counts now. I can sense that the fatigue is starting to affect my patience and my mood.
4 comments:
One more month of running is a long way to go. How many miles have you put in at this point?
I have not added it all up, but my guess is approximately 1000 miles with another 1000 more to go.
In your field of work, I am sure you won't ever let anyone take a simple aerial measurement and tell you how long you need to go, especially on mountainous terrain.
The next month ends up being a real mental struggle to finish.
For the estimated length of Japan, are you saying you ran a total of about 2000 miles?
Yes, that's correct.
You can take an aerial measurement, but you can't run in a straight line in a mountainous country like Japan. In addition, you are constantly going in and out of of towns, which makes the distance add up.
If I were to do it again, I would run with the Garmin (GPS) device to measure the total distance.
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