parkrunning in and out of trouble

 

I think sleep is now required as only 3 hrs last night with 6 hrs for the previous 2 and the balance don't look great. Strangely my balance has not yet been impacted, physically at least. Mentally I may be have been close to howling at the moon at one point today.

But the excitement of another parkrun mean the toilet was in full use from a very early on, many considerations given to the the nature of the course, clothing, and transport to the start.  Chrissi really does get very worked up about these sorts of things!  I slipped into support mode, although always keen to tick off another international and different one, a chance to mix with the locals and the international family.

A fair old bit of metro needed to get to the location out in the burbs. A park next to a river should on paper sound picturesque. It was pretty much a small green streak in a concrete jungle and not one of the more aesthetically pleasing ones I have visited. The weather was super humid, but the people were super friendly, and the course was super flat so  you win some and you lose some.  My main loss was dehydration at about 2k as the constant beer began to take its toll. Luckily I have been forcing them down Bryn so could keep him in the rear view mirror.

Couldn't hang around, not that there was much to see, and serious rehydration as I chucked a number of smoothies into me before we got on the metro and whizzed back to the hotel. Just a very quick stop in Starbucks to take on even more liquid and some sort of sausage muffin.  I think our tastes (in physical adversity) go back to the tried and tested comfort foods.

Had to check out of the hotel by 11 and that was a bit of a rush, then through the sodden tokyo streets, the rainy season has begun, and onto the metro criss crossing to Tokyo Station. I foolishly thought that you could just hop on a train out to Fuji Lakes, I hadn't thought to book ... oh oh... seat of the pants almost became something else in the pants as alternatives were explored. Not many pictures to taken to record these moments ...

Chrissi jumped to the rescue, as to be fair did Bryn and Carys, once the initial blame had been laid firmly on my shoulders.  The power of the internet gave us other options but it did involve lugging that bloody luggage across tokyos public transport, we though parkrun had been hard, this was the marathon.

Eventually found a bus option but still had a couple of hours to kill (each other)  An old Vegas favourite, Eggslut loomed into view and suddenly all was well with the world again.  Those gourmet eggy beauts chirped everyone up, and I had some blackforest gateaux taste sensation to really restore my world view again as positive, with a chocolate, bsicuit, cherry, custardy tinge.

Up in the Bus Station we all chilled with the backpackers and awaited our ticket to ride out of Tokyo to 5 Lakes.  The city sprawl was one long eyesore but suddenly something began to emerge in the clouds, and urban gave way to  countryside. And the misty mountains rose up before us with something of a mystery, who knows how they will write the next chapter of the story. Looked like they were steaming, volcanic almost, which of course they are.  There was a bit of real steam earlier but it appears to have gone now.

A final hiccup with finding our Air Bnb but not having the wifi to be able to remind myself of the lock box combo, but only a few minutes from some free wifi and all sorted. The house was very modern and offered that rarity in these parts, SPACE We have to show respect to the space though and all wear slippers.

We took a final walk into Kawaguchiko.  You can sense Mount Fuji looming over us but that is for another day.  On our walk there was a massive fireworks display, hadn't realised our arrival warranted that. It turns out its to celebrate the opening of the climbing season at Mount Fuji  Picked up a few bits from Lawsons, local supermarket, ready meal and crisp fill a gap type of grub, nothing to write home about. Now, sleep ... where are you?

(Carys)

I regretted the late-ish night we'd had from the moment the alarm went off at 6am, but nonetheless we got up and readied ourselves for parkrun. Even though it was early when we reached the metro, the stations appeared very busy, but I suppose it is a city so that isn't too unusual, it just surprised me. 

With only a handful of mishaps and wrong turns, we managed to arrive, with the help of a useful youtube video and my subsequent very specific directions. There were also many other runners on their way too, which ended up being a nice little group of around 100 participants and lovely volunteers. It was very friendly and cheerful, and I actually really enjoyed the run, with flat paths and some parts like a squishy athletics track. It feels great to have checked off another country! 

Although humid and hot, the rain allowed a brief relief from dehydration, but still we headed for the metro to buy some drinks. After some more metro navigating we stopped in Starbucks for some breakfast, and I went for a basic vanilla cream frappucino and an Oreo cream cake. 

We went back to the hotel to pack up, and when the rain picked up a bit, powered though with our suitcases back into Shinjuke in the city. After some travel troubles we ended up waiting in Eggslut with some refreshments, and eventually ended up on the bus to Fuji which provided some beautiful views of the surrounding nature. 

I'm really excited to delve unto a different side to Japan and all it has to offer over the next couple of days before we take off. We walked from the cute little bus station in the village to the air bnb, which proved spacious and comfortable. To end the day off we went in search of a restaurant but ended up with a personal buffet of somewhat Japanese food from a local supermarket, involving seaweed rice, tofu parcels, bean curd paste and pickled vegetables. All very tasty. Dessert was then a few pieces of another type of ream cake that resembled an arctic roll - very fluffy and light.