We were getting picked up by a bus at 0645 but not having fully recovered from my jetlag I once again avoided my alarm and thus had a relatively relaxing morning – all considering. I had expected to be able to see parts of the city on the way to the starting area, but a few minutes after leaving the hotel we dipped down into a tunnel, and a few minutes before arriving at our destination we came back up onto street level. So that was… something.
It was a cold morning and there was nothing to do in the starting area in the 1½ hours before they’d close the starting corrals, so the wait felt even longer.
As opposed to similarly-sized runs we were all sent off in a rolling start instead of in waves. So when the gun went off at 0910 there was very little extra waiting necessary, the only wait was for the runners ahead of you – and app. 8 minutes later I crossed the starting line. The start was made possible by the fact that the start was on some very wide streets so despite it being crowded (which naturally happens when 38000 runners set off at almost the same time) it never felt uncomfortably crowded.
Being a cold morning it was a bit rough starting but reaching around 4-5 km we finally passed some space between the tall buildings and were hit by the sun and thereby got some actual warmth which greatly improved the conditions. For the rest of the run we often switched between sun and shade with significant change in temperatures. While there was a breeze we were protected from it most of the time – when we weren’t it was nice to be cooled down, though it didn’t take long before it got cold. During the last 7-8 km the wind had dwindled and being out in the open it was by far the hottest part of the course.
The course had a lot of repetition in form of going out and back on the same streets. It didn’t bother me as much as I had expected; you got to see the same from a different angle (which might as well have been a completely different place not knowing the city and focusing on trying to survive the run) and you got to greet other runners even if they were far ahead or behind you. At around 14-ish km and the following few km we were running parallel with the course’s +/- 31 km marker and at the point in time I got there I got to see Kipchoge racing along (who turned out to “only” be at around 10th place at the time) so we got to cheer him and some of the other elites along.
The Japanese are quite reserved, even in cases like this, so you never got the chaos and noise from the onlookers that you’d experience during the large US races or London. But there weren’t many passages along the way where there weren’t people cheering us on. But if you managed to gain eye contact with someone their enthusiasm spiked and you got your own little personal energetic cheer to get you along.
Due to the wide streets it was difficult to avoid excessive zig-zagging when getting water and getting back into the flow, so when crossing the finish line my watch said 43,17 km. I speculated that some of that could have been due to the GPS signals bouncing between the tall buildings, but those I talked with after the run had registered similar distances, so apparently the wide streets just resulted in more cross-movement than usual.
Despite the extended distance (and a way too long wait at a toilet break where I lost around 3 minutes) I still managed to reach my goal of completing below 4 hours – my finishing time was 3:59:06. I came in as 13089 out of 35411 overall (top 36,96%), 10905 out of 26682 men (top 40,87%) and 1929 out of 3757 in my age group (51,34%). A result I am quite happy with and quite similar to other equal runs.
Crossing the finishing line meant that I had completed all the 6 marathon majors and when getting the probably least inspiring medal for the run I could continue waddling along and pick up my 6 star finisher medal, one that is significantly more impressive-looking. We also got handed a back that got filled with energy drink, water, bath salts(??), wipes, heating blanket and a parka. There was a miserable lack of snacks which I crave after such a run. I found “my” bus and only a few minutes later we were off and returned to the hotel – this time above ground.
Returning to the hotel I had a long much-needed shower before heading back outside and visited the kiosk right outside to stock up on snacks for the afternoon. By time, too, as I was walking around slightly lightheaded.
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