Edogawa 10K

25 Nambanners participated in Sunday's Edogawa 10k, carrying home eight awards including Brett's second consecutive overall first place trophy. Moreover a remarkable seven Nambanners achieved a Personal Best time despite warm temperatures and a course that while fast, is not necessarily the optimal PB course. Thanks to Shiba-san for organizing this wonderful event, and thanks for support of Taeko and Paul's wife Junko.

Motozo's time was a PB 39:41 !

I thought I was in big trouble right before the race -- the Tullys near my house was not open on Sunday morning at 7:30am. Thankfully I managed to find a combini less than 30-minutes before the gun went off and was able to consume a caffeinated beverage. It seemed like we had been talking about this race for months, and it was my first big 10k race in a long time, maybe over a year. There were no less than 6 of us who were going to shoot for a sub-40 race (Keren, Simon, Paddy, Adam, Anthony, Motozo), so I expected it to be fun and competitive...

When the gun went off most of my teammates around me (Keren, Adam, Stu, Paddy, Jun, Simon, Anthony) went out fast. All the excitement of the Edogawa start on the track with the band playing and the crowd cheering causes people to run the first 500-meters way too fast. I knew I should stay behind Bob, the savvy veteran of innumerable Edogawa campaigns, but soon lost him in the crowd. Instead, I ran with Keren and Simon from the get go at a blistering 3:48 first 1k, and just under 4 minute/K pace for the next 4k, which felt quite fine. The back half was tough as the heat began to take its toll, and we all slowed to 4:02 pace for 6-8k. At 9k, I felt more confident that I could get under 40 with still a 5 second cushion, and shifted gears once more. The last K was about 3:40 which gave me almost identical 5k splits of 19:50 or so.