Notes
Got my self set to go and was walking to the start when I bump into the guy from last year who kept talking to me in broken English five minutes from go time while I was stretching and all nervous and crap. Turns out he had shifted to the 10K as well. Just my luck! Every chance he got during the race, he made some comment to me, but fortunately it was not so prolonged. I kept a smile on my face. He just probably doesn't realise he's incredibly annoying etc so I gotta be nice.
The course was different to the half course and we started off in the opposite direction. Not crazy hot, but still pretty hot out. Just tried to cruise and kept to the back of the group. This riverside area totally feels like Beer River. Kinda cool crossing over the bridge and getting to the other side where the first, and only, drink station was. (Not four like in Shibetsu!) I pounded my Seicomart jelly drink at the first turnaround just before that though. I couldn't quite wait till I actually hit 5K. Just got no stamina... (There is a lack of training issue I need to work on too though...)
After that, I had to take walk breaks on and off. My running pace is good, problem is, I can't maintain it the whole way. Gotta log some more Ks before AKawa. Back over the bridge and off in the other direction. Starting to heat up, but really like the 10K running course here too. Was really hoping there would be a drink station around 8K and the second turnaround, but sadly, that was not to be. Managed to conserve enough energy that I could fly into the "stadium" (think it's the local ice rink) and look cool for the finish though. Burned off a bunch of chicks and lame-ass guys in the process. They may have maintained their pace the entire way, but they were never going to beat me...
What up with this though, they give you a water at the finish, but there were no stalls or anything this time. No one was selling anything! Free mini tomatoes, but that was it. Last year they had some canned drinks on ice, but this year...nothing. This is a pretty local small town event, but they could so be making money here. I would have had at least two plastic cups of draught beer. Totally. Fried chicken on a stick. Absolutely. Grilled chicken on a stick. For sure.
Instead we hit the revolving sushi restaurant and got my 11:30am buzz on. MHM ate all sorts of disgusting crap too.
One further comment was that the entry fee here cost 2000 or 2500 yen. This year it was 3000 yen. Stoked on how cheap it was last year, but after thinking about it this year, there's no t-shirt or towel or anything, so actually it's kinda expensive. The t-shirts these days are kinda cool too...
Under an hour for the Beer River 10K. Gotta pick this up...