Mission accomplished…

at the Ohtaki 20k Mountain trail run…All Nambaners, Yuri, Satohi, Gerald, Yoshida-san and myself finished in the top 3 rankings today. Yuri won the overall woman competition in a spectacular 1h33, Satohi finished as the runners up in 1h51. Gerald got 3^rd place in the overall men competition in a blistering 1h26, just a few seconds behind the winner. He was in striking distance to the 2^nd place when he crossed the finish line. Yoshida-san finished 2^nd in the M40 age group with a strong 1h35. He might have ran faster but had a severe coff. I could get 3^rd place in the M40 group in 1h38.

The race day started at Midnight, when finally Yoshida-san arrived at the hotel room. He had to pass an exam on Sunday and drove the car for 4hrs afterwards to get to Ohtaki. We woke up at 4:30am, had a few rice balls and some Gatorade. At 5:15am we drove to the meeting point where we hopped into the shuttle bus for the 20k race. We arrived at the starting area around 6:40am, that's "just in time delivery " ;-) Gun(Horn) went off at 7am.

I was not too excited about this trail run because I am not a fan of hills or even mountains. But the course is quite o.k. First 6k are steady uphill, followed by 5k downhill, all gravel road. Then, at the 11k mark, the road gets asphalted again and is steady downhill. Have to say that I enjoyed the race at that point. We waited for the ceremony, which took place at noon (yic! 3hrs waiting) and got rewarded by many medals and certificates. Congratulations to our Namban girls again, they swept the podium.