The Outer Banks Marathon is this Sunday. It will be a small marathon with about 1,200 runners- a perfect size in my opinion. I love the smaller marathons and I’m really looking forward to seeing 26.2 miles of a part of the U.S. that I have never been to. Have you been to the Outer Banks? Any recommendations?
Though I love the small marathons in my journey to run a marathon in every state, I can also appreciate the big ones too! With that said, I’m already looking forward to the next marathon on my schedule.
It’s one I’m quite excited about…
Can you guess? I’ll give you a clue. It’s not a small marathon.
I’ll give you another clue. It doesn’t fit into my 50 state goal.
Guess what? Dustin and I are running the Tokyo Marathon on February 22, 2015!
Why Tokyo?
Dustin’s older brother has lived in Tokyo for about 15+ years. Dustin has been there to visit multiple times, but I haven’t ever been. I have been to other parts of Asia but this will be my first time in Japan. I’m so excited! We have been saying that we wanted to combine a visit to his brother and family with this marathon, but we always had excuses…too close to our fall marathons, his brother’s kids were too young, it’s too hard to train in the winter, etc. But no more excuses. Let’s do this thing!
How will I train?
This marathon will be 15 weeks after the Outer Banks marathon or just over three months. I did the St. George Marathon and the Memphis Marathon in 2011 with two months in between. That was tight, but I managed. I think 3.5 months should be fine. I will take one week completely off, one week to ease back into it, and then follow a moderated 13 week training schedule with a full 3 week taper. This leaves me with 10 weeks of training. I will have to jump into it pretty quickly, but it doesn’t seem outrageous.
Wait..Isn’t Tokyo already full?
Yep. Since this was a bit of a last-minute decision, we had to go through Marathon Tours to get into the race. The Tokyo marathon is a lottery entry, but Marathon Tours still had a few guaranteed entries left (we barely slipped in!). Of course, this means we do have to stay in the hotel that Marathon Tours selects for at least four nights, but we plan to stay with Dustin’s brother for the rest of our visit.
Why would you run a marathon that doesn’t fit into your 50 state goal?
Why not? Most marathoners who have the 50-state goal are running at least a marathon a month. I am definitely not that aggressive! For Dustin and me, we have used the 50-state goal as a way to select our marathons. Yet we aren’t quite as focused on that one goal as most others are. I guess I consider it more of a loose guideline for selection, with room to get sidetracked along the journey- especially for experiences like this one!
The Tokyo Marathon will be my 3rd continent, 3rd country, and 3rd World Major.
An Opportunity to Connect with Long-Distance Friends
In addition to visiting my family, I will be connecting with a long-distance friend! (<— “long-distance”- see what I did there?)
Remember Phil from this guest post about running Hood to Coast while living in the Cayman Islands? He’s running the Tokyo Marathon too and he’s going there via Marathon Tours. I’m looking forward to running a race with him!
Any tips for the Tokyo marathon? Please share!
TOKYO?! Awesome!
Yes! So excited! 🙂
OOOOhhh! Tokyo! So cool! I’m already excited to vicariously visit Tokyo through your posts! 🙂 Congratulations on this big decision. I know you’re going to do awesome!
Thanks Katie! I’m super excited!
So exciting! What an amazing experience it will be! And, LOVE the new site!
Thanks Erin- I appreciate the nice feedback. I’m still getting used to WordPress but it definitely looks fancier, ha!
This is awesome! I’ve heard that’s a really great (and competitive) race. Are you going to run for a specific goal, or just the fun of running in Japan?
I’m not sure yet how I will run it…it depends on what happens between now and then, how OBX goes and how training in January goes 🙂 I have read a few reviews that say I should expect it to be pretty crowded for a middle-of-the-pack runner, like Berlin was. But excited for the experience no matter what!
Holy cow! This is SO exciting 🙂
Yes! I’m super excited! Just have to make it through training in the winter unscathed 🙂
[…] love them! They treated me well on my most recent 26.2 mile journey and I plan to bring them to Tokyo for the marathon in February as […]
[…] Training… Today marks the beginning of training for Tokyo. […]
[…] a speed workout on the schedule. Remember how I am working with a coach this time around for the Tokyo marathon? So far each week there has been a speed workout and a threshold workout (i.e. tempo) workout. […]
[…] I’m a Minneapolis girl on a temporary assignment in Singapore for work. I am training for the Tokyo marathon while I am […]
[…] birthday, January will be over before you know it! I also am slightly limited by the upcoming Tokyo marathon, as I can’t be as adventurous as I’d like to in terms of the classes that I try (i.e. […]
[…] Sunday! I’m here with my normal weekly recap of training for the Tokyo Marathon. This was a big week for me, though I’m not in the taper quite yet. In the past, I would […]
[…] Remember this post, when I first announced that I would be running the Tokyo Marathon? It was a week before the Outer Banks Marathon. It seems like ages ago! […]
[…] we are, just a week before the Tokyo Marathon. Actually, I have less than a week. The race is Sunday morning at 9 am, but since Tokyo is 15 […]