Chapter 4 third chapter

On September 1, 2005, Kauai, Hawaii ran the first 42 kilometers in Athens in the middle of summer Yesterday, August ended.Calculate the distance run in this month, 31 days, a total of 350 kilometers. 260km in June (60km per week) 310km in July (70km per week) 350km in August (80km per week) The goal is the New York City Marathon on November 6th.The adjustments made for this are generally going well, because I have planned to increase the amount of exercise and increase the running distance in stages from five months before the event. Kauai has a unique climate in August, and there is not even a day when it rains and it is impossible to run.Occasionally it rained, but it was a pleasant rain, just to cool down the burning body.Summers on Kauai's north coast are usually nice, but it's rare to see such a long stretch of sunshine.I was able to run as hard as I could.Physical condition is also no problem.The daily running distance was increased little by little, and there was no scream from the body.There is no injury, no pain, and no fatigue. The three-month practice is over.

There is no bitter summer.I don't have a particular countermeasure for bitter summer.There is nothing to say, but it is usually to pay attention not to eat cold things, and eat more fruits and vegetables.In Hawaii, where fresh fruits like mangoes, papayas and avocados are so cheaply available, the storefronts are literally stocked, and this is the ideal place for my summer diet.It is said that this is a "bitter summer countermeasure", rather it is a natural requirement of the body.If you exercise your body every day, it is easy to understand the taste.Another healthy method is to take a nap.I slept a lot in the afternoon.After lunch, he felt drowsy, so he lay down on the sofa and fell asleep in a daze.It takes about thirty minutes to wake up suddenly.When I wake up, my body is completely tired and my mind is very clear, which is what the Southern Europeans call "siesta".I remember it as if it was a habit I picked up while living in Italy, maybe there is a difference.I used to be a person who likes to take a nap. Once I feel sleepy, I can sleep right away no matter when and where.I've run many races, but this is the first time such a miserable race.The location is somewhere in Chiba Prefecture.

After running for more than 30 kilometers, the race went smoothly. I even thought that if I continued to run like this, the results this time would not be too bad.Endurance still remains, enough to cover the rest of the distance.At this moment, my feet suddenly lost their control and began to cramp, which became more and more severe, and soon I couldn't run at all.No matter how much I stretch, my inner thighs still cramp and tremble.Muscles were twisted into weird shapes, and he couldn't even stand up.I involuntarily squatted on the side of the road.I also experienced cramps during competitions, but every time I stretched carefully, my muscles returned to normal in about five minutes, and I was able to run again.This time, however, it was far from that simple.After a long time, the spasm still did not stop.I thought I was getting better, but as soon as I started running, I immediately had another attack.So the last five kilometers can only be covered at a tottering pace.For the first time in my life, instead of running, I walked in a marathon.Before, no matter how painful it was, I would not leave. This is my pride.A marathon is a race of running, not a race of walking.At the time I could barely even walk.The idea of ​​simply giving up the game and sitting in the asylum vehicle crossed my mind several times.Anyway, the grades are terrible, so it doesn't matter if you don't run.However, I am not willing to abstain.Even if I'm crawling, I want to stick to the finish line.

The others caught up one after another and overtook them.With a bitter face, I dragged my legs and walked towards the finish line.The numbers on the digital timer ruthlessly record the passage of time.The wind from the sea blows all over the fields, and the sweat soaked through the vest cools down, making the chill unbearable.You must know that this is an event held in the middle of winter! With a vest and shorts, walking on the unobstructed road, it is of course extremely cold.It never occurred to me that I could be so cold after a break from running.As long as you keep running, your body will always be warm and you won't feel cold.However, what hurts more than the cold is the wounded self-esteem, and the horrible figure of oneself when staggering on the marathon track.Two kilometers away from the finish line, the cramps finally subsided and I was able to run again.I jogged slowly, slowly regained my form, and even made a bold sprint.However, the results are very poor.

The reason for the failure is clear at a glance: Not enough exercise! Not enough exercise! Not enough exercise! Not enough practice, and the weight has not completely dropped.Forty-two kilometers, how can I run down if I deal with it casually! I am afraid that this kind of arrogance will unconsciously arise in my heart.The wall between healthy confidence and unhealthy contempt is very thin.When you are young, you may be able to break through the difficulty of a full marathon by "handling it casually".You don't have to practice hard like you can't make it through, and you can run pretty good results just by relying on the stored physical strength.Unfortunately I am not young anymore.Without paying the necessary price, you can only taste the corresponding cooked physique.From a health-keeping standpoint, this is indeed a quality to celebrate.It's just that sometimes he falls asleep unknowingly when he shouldn't be asleep, causing trouble.The weight also dropped smoothly, and the face became more refined.It is a good thing that the body has changed like this.But compared to the young age, change is more time-consuming and labor-intensive.What used to take one and a half months to do now takes three months.The efficiency of the movement is obviously reduced.This is a helpless thing, we can only go with the flow and stick to it with the resources at hand.This is the principle of life, and the level of efficiency is not the only criterion that determines the value of a way of life.In the gym I always go to in Tokyo, there is a poster that reads: "Muscle is hard to grow, but easy to lose. Fat is easy to grow, but hard to lose." A boring fact, but it is true after all.

August just waved away, as if waving.Entering September, the practice style has changed.In the previous three months, "it was to accumulate distance", there was no need to think about difficult problems, but to gradually speed up the pace, and only need to run hard every day.Build a comprehensive basic physical strength, improve endurance, strengthen the muscles of various parts, strengthen your body and mind, and improve morale.The important task at that time was to send a notice to the body: "It's a matter of course to run so much." "Notification" is of course a metaphor, how to use language to order, the body will not obey so easily.The body is a very transactional system. Only when pain is given to it intermittently and concretely, can it recognize and understand this information, and will take the initiative (maybe it cannot be said) to accept the amount of exercise given to it.We will increase the upper limit of the amount of exercise little by little.Little by little, little by little.Don't overload your body.

Entering September, there are still two months before the official competition, and the training has entered an adjustment period.Suddenly long and short, and suddenly soft and hard, so that there is tension and relaxation, and the transformation from "quantitative practice" to "qualitative practice" is completed.It is set to let the fatigue usher in the highest peak when the event is about a month away.This is an important time when you must carefully talk to your body while moving your training forward. Unlike August, when I settled down somewhere in Kauai Island and practiced desperately, September had to travel a long distance, from Hawaii to Japan, and then from Japan to Boston.I will be very busy in Japan, so I can't just run as hard as I did before.The decline in running distance needs to be compensated efficiently through the ingenious arrangement of the training plan.I don't want to say this, it's better to hide it quietly in the closet: the last bitter fruit.

I don't want to suffer this kind of pain again! At that time, I thought deeply.I don't want it to come back to this cold and miserable memory.The next time I participate in a full marathon, I will return to my original intention, start from scratch, work hard; train carefully, and rediscover my physical strength.Tighten every screw carefully to see what kind of results you can get.That's what was on my mind as I shuffled and shuffled through the cold wind, being overtaken by many. I said hello at the beginning, saying that I am not a character who is competitive and hates losing.Losing money is inevitable.It is impossible for anyone to be undefeated.On the highway of life, you can't always drive in the overtaking lane.But unwillingness to repeat the same failure is another matter.Learn from one failure and apply it at the next opportunity.While I can afford to stick to this lifestyle, I will.

I'm writing this at my desk as I continue to train for the "next marathon," which will be held in New York City.Searching for memories, reminiscing one by one when I was just practicing long-distance running more than 20 years ago, I dug out the simple diary I wrote down at that time and read it again (I can’t write a diary by nature, only the running diary is fairly carefully recorded), Summarized into a document.It is not only to confirm the footsteps that I have walked step by step, but also to discover the traces of my heart in that era.It is not only admonishing yourself, but also motivating yourself.It is more to shake up a certain motivation that hibernates at a certain moment.To put it bluntly, it is to write articles to clarify the way of thinking.As a result, this may have become a "memoir" based on running.

Having said that, what occupies the main part of my brain at the moment is not the "records", but how to run the New York City Marathon with a decent result after two months of running.How to build your own body is the most important issue right now. On August 25th, the American running magazine "Runner's World" came to take pictures.A photographer came from California and spent the whole day taking pictures of me.The man, Greg, was an enthusiastic young photographer who had flown all the way to Kauai with enough equipment to fill a pickup truck.I finished the interview not long ago, and this time I took photos for the article, portrait photos, and photos while running.It seems that there are not many novelists who insist on running full marathons (not all, but very few), and they have become interested in my "running novelist" life status. "Runner's World" is a widely read magazine in the United States, so there may be a lot of people saying hello to me in New York.Thinking of this, I feel more and more unreasonable that I can't run, and I can't help feeling more and more uneasy.

And push the topic back to 1983.Throwback to the somewhat nostalgic days of Duran Duran and Hall & Oz. In July of that year, I went to Greece to run from Athens to Marathon alone, and run the original marathon route—Marathon to Athens—in reverse.Why do you run in the opposite direction? Because starting from the center of Athens early in the morning, running out of the city before the roads start to congest and the air is polluted, and going straight to the marathon, the traffic volume on the road is much less, and it is more comfortable to run.This is not a formal race, so you can run alone at will, and of course you can't expect any traffic control. Why did you rush to Greece and run the 42 kilometers alone? That’s because by chance, a men’s magazine approached me and asked me, “Would you like to go to Greece and write related travel notes?” This is a media Interview trip, organized and planned by the Greek Government Tourist Office.It is said that many magazines participated together, and the travel route included old-fashioned sightseeing of ruins, boating in the Aegean Sea, etc., but after these are over, the return air ticket can freely specify the date, stay as long as you want in the local area, and do whatever you want what to do.I wasn't interested in this kind of all-inclusive sightseeing trip, but the fact that everything is free after the tour is very attractive.After all, Greece has the original route of the marathon.I'd like to see the route for myself, maybe even run a section myself.What an exhilarating experience for me as a new long-distance runner! Wait a minute! Why does it have to be "a section"? How about running this route from the beginning to the end? As soon as I made a proposal, Gao, the editor of the magazine, agreed: "That's very interesting." So I had to be alone, and silently ran the first full marathon-like route in my life.The audience, the finish line, the grand cheers of the crowd, nothing.However, this is the original marathon course! What else can you expect? In fact, running along the road from Athens to Marathon is less than the official distance of 42.195 kilometers for the full marathon.About two kilometers were missing.I officially participated in the Athens Marathon a few years later, and I only learned of this fact when I ran from the Marathon to Athens according to the original form.Those who have watched the broadcast of the Athens Olympic marathon may remember that the athletes who started from the marathon turned to the left side of the road, turned around a certain plain ruins, and then returned to the original route.That is to make up for the short distance.At that time, I knew nothing about these things. I went straight to the marathon from Athens and thought I had run forty-two kilometers.Actually only about forty kilometers.However, I took some detours in the city, and the odometer of the accompanying car showed a distance of about 42 kilometers.In the end, I probably ran a very close distance to a full marathon.But today, none of that matters. What I ran was Athens in midsummer.People who have been there know that Athens in midsummer is unimaginably hot.Local people never go outside if they have nothing to do in the afternoon.Do nothing, save energy, and take a nap in the cool shade of a tree.It's dark to go outside.It can be asserted that most of the people who are still walking outside in the summer afternoon are tourists.Even the dog lay motionless under the shade of the tree, whether it was dead or alive, I watched for a long time, but still couldn't figure out what to do.It's that hot.Running forty-two kilometers in this season is really a crazy move. When I talked about running from Athens to the marathon alone, the Greeks said in unison, "Don't do that kind of stupid thing. That's not what normal people do." I didn't know anything about the summer heat in Athens, and I was always relaxed and felt It was nothing more than running forty-two kilometers, and I was still thinking about the distance, and had no time to take into account the temperature.However, when I came to Athens, I was taken aback by the scorching heat, and I began to think, "Maybe this is really abnormal behavior." Having said that, I boasted that I had to travel the original route and write a report before rushing all the way to Greece.Now, how can we step back and withdraw? After thinking about it, I racked my brains and came to the conclusion: in order to avoid the consumption caused by the scorching heat, we had to start from Athens before dawn and reach the finish line before the sun rose very high. .The slower the rate, the faster the temperature rises.This is simply the world of Osamu Dazai's novel "Run, Melos", the so-called race against the sun. Masao Jingshan, the photographer who came to Greece together, ran with the editor in a car while taking pictures.It's not a competition, and of course there is no water supply, so you can only drink the drinks handed from the car at any time.In summer in Greece, the sun is scorching day after day, so be careful not to get dehydrated. "Murakami-kun, are you really planning to run the whole distance?" Jing Shan asked in amazement when he saw me getting ready for a long-distance run. "Of course. That's why I came." "However, for this kind of plan, people usually don't really run the whole journey. Just take a few photos, and the middle part is almost omitted. Oh, you really ran!" I really don't understand things in the world.This kind of thing really happens all the time. Let him handle such matters. I set off from the Olympic Arena, which was later used in the Athens Olympics, at 5:30 in the morning and headed straight for the marathon.The road is an arterial road, an avenue.After running, I realized that the paving method of roads in Greece is very different from that in Japan.Instead of crushed stones, they mixed something like marble dust, which glistened in the sun and slipped easily.After it rains, you must drive carefully.Even if it is not raining, the soles will squeak, and the slippery touch will come from under the feet.Below is a summary of the report I wrote for the magazine at the time. The sun rises majestically towards the mid-heaven.The roads in Athens are extremely difficult to run.It is about five kilometers from the arena to the entrance of Marathon Boulevard. There are too many traffic lights, and the running rhythm is repeatedly disrupted.Due to illegal parking and construction, the sidewalks are blocked in many places, and they often have to go down to the driveway to run. However, the cars in the city are driving at high speed in the early morning, and the runners feel that their lives are in danger. As we entered Marathon Boulevard, the sun began to reveal itself.All the street lights in the city went out.The time when the summer sun dominates the surface is slowly approaching.People also began to appear at the bus stop.People in Greece have the habit of taking a nap and go to work earlier.Everyone looked at me as I was running with amazed eyes.Oriental men running around Athens before dawn are probably not very common.Athens is a city with few fitness runners. Until the twelve kilometers, it is a long and slow uphill road.Almost no wind.At the six kilometer mark, I took off my vest and was naked from the upper body.I usually run with my upper body bare. After taking off the vest, I feel very refreshed, but I have to suffer from severe sunburn afterwards. After running to the top of the slope, I felt relieved that I had finally run out of the city.The sidewalks were gone, replaced by narrow shoulders outlined in white lines.As the rush hour begins, the number of vehicles increases.Right next to me, large buses and trucks passed by at a speed of about 80 kilometers per hour. The name "Marathon Avenue" always makes people feel an inexplicable taste, but it is actually just a road to work. Here, I came across the dead body of a dog.It was a large brown dog. No injuries were seen, and it just lay in the middle of the road.It must have been a stray dog, killed by a speeding car in the middle of the night.It looked slightly warm, as if it was still alive.The truck driver speeding past didn't even look at the dog corpse. A little earlier, I saw a cat that was flattened by a tire.The cat was like an oddly shaped pizza, completely flattened, dried out, and seemed long dead.It is such a path. I came all the way from Tokyo to this beautiful country, why do I run on this unsightly and extremely dangerous road? Is there nothing else I should do? I strongly questioned myself.In the end, three dogs and eleven cats were the poor animals that lost their lives along Marathon Boulevard that day.As I counted, I felt very depressed. Just keep your head down and run.The sun exposed its complete body in front of me, climbing towards the mid-heaven at an incredible speed.Thirst is unbearable.No time to even wipe off the sweat.The air was so dry that the sweat evaporated from the skin in no time, leaving only white salt.There is a description called sweating like beads, but before my sweat turns into beads, the whereabouts of the water is unknown.His whole body was covered with salt, and he was burning with pain.When he licked his lips, there was a taste similar to anchovies sauce.I really want to drink cold beer that is almost freezing and crispy! However, this is just a dream.Roughly every five kilometers, I took a drink from the editor who drove with me.It was the first time I drank so much water while running. However, the physical condition is not bad.There is still a lot of energy left.About 70% of his strength was exerted, and he ran steadily while maintaining an unhurried rhythm.Alternate uphill and downhill.Running from the inland to the coast, so there are mostly downhill slopes.Leaving the city center and the outskirts of the city, the surroundings gradually turned into pastoral scenery.On the way, in a small village called Naia Ma Keli, the old people sat at the table in front of the cafe, drinking their morning coffee in small cups, while silently chasing my running figure with their eyes, as if In witnessing an inconspicuous detail of history. There is a mountain pass at the 27th kilometer. After crossing the mountain pass, the Marathon mountain is slightly exposed.After doing the math, two-thirds of the distance should have been completed.Running like this, it seems that you can run the whole distance in three hours and thirty minutes.However, such a good thing will never happen.After running about 30 kilometers, the wind blows head-on from the sea, and the closer to the marathon, the stronger the wind.The wind was so strong that it hurt the skin.Trying to save a little effort, the person was almost blown backwards.Slightly smell the breath of the sea.The gentle uphill road begins.The road is an avenue leading to Marathon, almost like a line drawn along a long ruler, as straight as a hair.From here, formal fatigue hits abruptly.No matter how much water is added, the throat will be thirsty immediately.I really want to drink cold cold beer. No no, don't think about the beer, or the sun.Forget about the wind too.Forget about reporting, too.Concentrate only on how to swing the two legs forward in turn.Other than that, there was no pressing matter at the moment. Ran thirty-five kilometers.For me, the road ahead is "unknown land".I have never run more than thirty-five kilometers in my life.To the left rose a desolate mountain of stones.At a glance, it is barren land and cannot be used.What kind of people, what kind of gods, specially created this kind of thing? On the right hand side is the endless olive garden.As far as the eye can see, everything is covered with a layer of white dust.Just like just now, the wind that hurts the skin still blows from the sea.Really, why does it have to be so windy? At about thirty-seven kilometers, everything is deeply tiresome.Ah, I'm bored, I don't want to run anymore! No matter how I think about it, the energy in my body is exhausted.It was like a car driving with an empty gas tank.I really want to drink water.However, I feel that if I stop drinking water at this time, I am afraid I will never be able to move again.Throat dry.However, I didn't even have the energy left to drink a sip of water.Thinking of this, he gradually became angry.I also started to get annoyed with the sheep grazing on the side of the road and the photographer who kept pressing the shutter in the car: the sound of the shutter is too loud! There are too many sheep! Pressing the shutter is the job of the photographer. Grazing is the job of sheep, and there is no reason to be picky.Yet I was still furious.Here and there small white bumps began to appear on the skin, blisters from the sunburn.Something big is going to happen.How the hell is it so hot! Ran forty kilometers. "There are still two kilometers left. Come on!" The editor cheered happily in the car. "Of course it's easy to move your lips and shout." I wanted to retaliate, but just thinking about it, I couldn't make a sound.The naked sun was extremely hot.It wasn't nine o'clock in the morning, and it was already terribly hot.Sweat trickles into the eyes.Because of the salt, it hurt like a pinprick, and I couldn't see anything for a while.I really want to wipe it with my hands, but my hands and face are full of salt, and rubbing my eyes will only hurt more. Behind the tall summer grass, the end point appears small.That is the Marathon Monument standing at the entrance of Marathon Village.Whether that was really the end was impossible to tell at first.I think its appearance is too abrupt as an end point.It's always nice to see the finish line, but it's so abrupt and inexplicably irritating.At the last moment, I really wanted to use up my last strength and speed up the dash, but my legs refused to move forward no matter what.I can't think of how to move my body.The muscles all over his body seemed to be digging desperately with a rusty plane.end. Finally ran to the finish line.No sense of accomplishment, nothing at all.My mind was filled with a sense of peace of mind that "finally I don't have to run down".Borrowing the faucet from the gas station, I calmed down the scorching heat all over my body, and washed off the white salt powder stuck all over my body.I seem to be a salt man, with salt all over my body.After listening to our explanation, the uncle at the gas station cut off the flowers planted in the flower pot, made a small bouquet, and gave it to me. "Okay, okay, congratulations." This kind of little care from people in a foreign country is deeply moving.Marathon is a small, welcoming village.A quiet and peaceful village.It is hard to imagine that in such a place, thousands of years ago, the Greek army defeated the Persian expeditionary force outside the country after a fierce battle.In the morning at the Marathon Village Café, I indulged in an ice-cold Amstel.The beer is good, but it's not nearly as good as I'd like it to be when I'm running.The beautiful fantasies embraced by the irrational people are simply non-existent in the real world. The time from Athens to Marathon Village is three hours and fifty-one minutes.It's not a good grade, but after all, I ran the full marathon alone, accompanied by traffic hell, unimaginable heat, and intense thirst, and I might as well be proud of it.However, this kind of thing doesn't matter at this moment.There is no need to run a step—this is the most joyful thing.Haha, don't run anymore This is the first forty-two kilometers in my life, almost.Thankfully, this is the last time to run forty-two kilometers under such harsh conditions.In December of that year, I ran the Honolulu Marathon with a passable time.Despite the heat, Hawaii looks lovely compared to Athens.Therefore, for me, the Honolulu Marathon is the maiden run of the full marathon.Since then, it has become a habit to participate in a full marathon every year. Re-reading this article after a long time, I found a fact: more than 20 years have passed, and I have run full marathons almost equal to the number of years, but what I feel after running 42 kilometers is different from the first time In comparison, it seems that not much has changed.Still the same, every time I run a marathon, I generally go through the same mental journey.After running 30 kilometers, I always felt that "this time I might get a good result".After thirty-five kilometers, the fuel in the body is exhausted, and I start to be very angry with all kinds of things.In the end, it gave birth to the feeling of "a car that keeps driving with an empty gas tank".However, after a while after running, all the painful and sad thoughts of the past were forgotten in the blink of an eye, and I made up my mind: "I will run better next time!" Repeating the same old thing over and over again. Yes, this model is not open to change anyway, I thought.If I have to coexist peacefully with this pattern, I can only absorb it and become part of my personality through persistent repetition, changing or distorting myself. Ha ha.