Jubilo Iwata 10k - 2014

On November 16th, I ran my second 10k race. I ran in the Jubilo Iwata Marathon 10k. I also participated in the same race last year.

 
During the race some photographers took pictures of everyone and there is a website where I can buy them. It's a really neat system because it finds the pictures of you based on your running number. They're really expensive though. :( Just a digital download of one photo is almost 900 yen. Somehow I think I can get one free smartphone download though, so I'll have to see if I can use Jonathan's phone for that.

I saw the photographer at this point and though about doing a cute pose like a peace sign or something, but thought I would never see the pictures anyway. I wish I had done something now though!

I felt good for most of the race and decided to push myself a bit harder towards the end, but before I really even started running faster I suddenly got a really horrible cramp and had to walk for a couple of minutes.

I finished at 1 hour and 14 minutes, but really my time was faster than that because it took about four or five minutes to cross the starting line. I had a time chip attached to my shoe but I guess it didn't register at the beginning because both my finish time and running time were the same on my certificate. Sad. :( So I think it was under 1:10, but not under 1:05 which had been my goal. I wish I had been able to run more before the race. It gets dark soon after I get off of work so I was only able to run on weekends. Last year I ran twice a week because I only worked half days on Wednesdays.

Then I waited in the stadium for Jonathan. He ran the half marathon!

I was bored and took a picture of my awesome hot pink shoes. :) I had Hello Kitty socks, too. I had them pulled up (even though it looked stupid) to show off the cuteness.

Jonathan's half marathon time was 1 hour and 54 minutes. He did really well! :)

The shirts this year have a kind of weird image (Is that water?), but the color is really pretty!

For lunch, we went to Spice Kingdom, the Indian restaurant near my apartment, to celebrate.

I just drank water, but I could have had "Have been loved Classic soda." 

So yummy!

I didn't do as well in the race as I had hoped, but it was still a good experience. What was really nice about the race this year was that 10k didn't seem that far anymore. Last year the race had seemed really long, but this year it didn't. I guess I have gotten used to running longer distances.

I felt good during the race, but soon after lunch I started to get a sore throat. Later that night and the next day I felt pretty bad. I'm still sort of getting over it. But luckily I was past the worst of it by the next weekend, when Jonathan and I went to Kyoto. I will post about that soon! :)