For this week's blog I decided to write about what goes on when I go away for an international race and how my time is spent preparing and resting for the race. This weekend I raced the Sapporo International Half Marathon in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Turns out that one stupid mistake can ruin a whole race.

Sunday to Wednesday:

My race is on Sunday the 3^rd in Japan so that means it is actually on Saturday in the US time zone. This meant pushing training back a day midweek so that my usual pre race training week would fit in as usual. For bigger half marathons I usually have to take into account a large amount of travelling so we use 3 days of easy running and lots of drills and strides before the race. Normally I would only do 2 days easy with a lighter workout 3 days before. This week I did my last hard workout on Sunday evening to take this all into account. I would normally do my workout in the morning but because we have been getting such strong winds, I decided to wait and hope that it would die down a little in the evening. I was lucky as it calmed down but not enough to go to the track and do the workout. You want to be confident and feeling good in your last workouts before a race so I decided again hitting the wind every lap and slowing down so I went to a road loop we often use for workouts as it would be slightly more sheltered. The loop is a mile long and I was running 5 times 1km with 2 minutes recovery so in order to get back to start line by the time the recovery was over, I asked Julie if she would drive behind me during the intervals and then drive me to the start again, 800 metres up the road. This way I could get some consistency in the workout with using the same course each time. I ended up feeling really good for the workout and had to hold back quite a bit so that I wouldn't leave the race out on the roads of Flagstaff. I ended up running 2.54, 2.49, 2.49, 2.48 and 2.42, running the last one at the same pace for the first 600m and then hard for the last 400m instead of doing an all out effort. I came away from that workout feeling good and ready to race again after the previous weeks 4 mile race.

I had an easy day of 16 miles (10 in the morning, 6 in the evening) and then a good massage on Monday and followed this with an easy fartlek around Buffalo Park the next morning. I wasn't feeling too great for the workout but that is quite normal for me after having a deep massage the night before. I had also started my no caffeine period so I took that into account as well for my sluggishness. Wednesday was another easy day of 14 miles but the difference about this was that both of my 50 minute runs were done before 12.30pm as I had another massage scheduled for 1pm. I wasn't as tired as I thought I would be for the second run and Monica went easy on me so I came away from the massage feeling pretty good. I drove down to Phoenix right after this to watch my brother-in-law play at an open mic night and then headed to Julie's parents house to get some sleep before my morning flight to Japan.

Thursday:

Flying to Japan from the USA is always a very long day. The day started out at 5.45am after having a crappy night's sleep. I got a quick shower and then my other brother-in-law dropped me off at the airport on his way to work. My flight was at 7.45am to San Francisco and I managed to sleep the whole way there. I then had 2.5 hours to kill until my flight to Tokyo but that went by pretty quickly as I grabbed some food and picked out some gifts for the race organisers (always a good thing to do when being hosted in Japan). I now had the long 11 hour flight to Tokyo to suffer through and usually its not too bad because you can pick all your movies and just zone out but there was particularly bad selection of new movies listed so I mainly watched films that I had watched before which became quite boring. We arrived right on time at Tokyo Narita airport and I got right through customs without any hold ups. I only had hand luggage with me so that sped up the process also. I then had 4 hours to pass by in the airport and I spent most of it in a restaurant that I had been to last year which I remembered had some particularly good sushi. I did everything I could not to fall asleep but that was very tough as it was 2am Arizona time. I finally boarded the plane for the last leg of my journey and almost immediately fell asleep. I woke up once we landed in Sapporo and was greeted by my interpreter for the weekend. It was an hour car ride to the hotel so I tried to talk as much as possible so as not to fall asleep again. I arrived at the hotel at 10pm (6 am Arizona time) and was met in the lobby by my agent, Jurrie. I had a quick catch up with him but I wanted to get to bed so it was lights out by 10.30pm. Surprisingly I didn't fall asleep right away but I think that was because I had slept so much during the day.

Friday:

I woke up at 5 am as I needed to go to the bathroom and then I just lay there for a while. I always wake up very early when I fly west and that is great because it means that I am awake for longer before my race. I decided to just get up at 5.45 and had a quick snack and then shaved my legs as I would be getting a massage later on in the day. I then headed out for a run in the park that was right in front of the hotel. Jurrie was already out there running so I joined him for 15 minutes and then continued on my own until I had run 40 minutes. I did my usual drills and strides but I didn't feel too great doing them. This is usually the case the day before a race so it was nothing to worry about. I headed to breakfast and then tried to nap for a while in my room but to no avail. I just watched a film instead to kill the time. I met Jurrie at 12pm and we headed out to lunch. Sapporo is famous for its miso ramen so as much as I wanted to get some sushi, we ended up in a ramen bar and it was well worth it. We got back just in time to get the bus for the course inspection. It took us 90 minutes to get around the course because of the traffic and I was starting to doze off on the bus. We got back just in time for me to get to an interview for the Japanese newspapers. I finished with the interviews and was met by Taku, a Mizuno associate. He brought me a big bag of new kit and some shoes to test out. He gave me some racing shoes that I've to wear in Daegu and also some prototype walking shoes that he wants me to give them feedback about. I rested for a little while after this as we had a banquet later on that the elites were to make an appearance at. Before I knew it, it was time to go down to the banquet and do a meet and great and photos with the organisers. I ended up eating dinner there as they had lots of sushi and other good food and I didn't have time to go to the restaurant with Jurrie and the Africans as I was having a massage at 6.30pm. The massage was the strangest one I've ever had but it did relax me and it loosened off my back as it had really tightened up during the day. I tried to stay awake for a while but I ended up falling asleep at 9pm.

Saturday:

I woke up 5.45am and went out for a 15 minute shake out jog. I felt pretty good but I was a little worried about the weather as it was already pretty humid. I got back and did my stretching before relaxing in my room and watching a film. I went to breakfast at 9am and filled up on toast, fruit and coffee. I went back to my room after I was done and talked to Julie on Skype as I wouldn't be leaving the hotel for another 2 hours. During this time I had a couple of coffees that turned out to be far stronger than I thought. By the time I got on the bus to go to the stadium I was feeling sick and shaking like crazy. This was not good. How could I have been so stupid? The coffee packets I was using weren't anything I wasn't used to but because the cups in the room were really small, I was thinking that I hadn't had as much as usual. I had 2 hours to try and wear off the effects of the caffeine so I drank lots of water and lay down for a while so my heart rate would calm down. When I went for my warm up I knew that my body was not feeling right but I tried to block that out and psyche myself up. Waiting on the start line was worse because I still felt shaky and I felt extremely nervous. I thought I was going to be sick but luckily the gun went and I could get moving. The pace seemed extremely hard for the first lap of the track and I knew then that this was going to be a long day. We hit a downhill coming out of the stadium and this is usually a place where I can fly but I was being swallowed up and being passed by so many people. I tried every mental tactic I knew to try and stave off the signals my body was sending me but after 6km I stopped and just went to the ground for a while. My head was spinning and I wanted to throw up but I got up and started to jog slowly back to the start as it felt better than walking. I eventually got back after what seemed to be the longest 6km of my life and found Jurrie to let him know what happened. This is when things really started to sink in about what I had just done. Something so controllable and something I am usually very aware of had put paid to a race I had travelled so far to compete in. I know I let down so many people in doing this. My agent, coach and sponsors had all put in so much faith in me and I had messed up badly because I wasn't thinking. I got back to the hotel a while later and let Julie know what had happened. I was still feeling physically sick and realised I hadn't eaten anything in a while. I stood up to have a shower and fainted onto my bed. It has been a long time since I have fainted and in the past I have ended up on the floor or tangled in a table so I was lucky that my bed was the landing spot. When I woke up I went straight downstairs to the shop and grabbed a bunch of food and shovelled it down. Jurrie told me to stay in my room so he knew where I was and I just rested for a while. I started to feel a lot better once the food hit my stomach. The rest of the night was spent having dinner and then going to bed early as I was too tired to do anything else. I was glad the day was over.

So...lesson learned. Don't be a numpty again! I am usually very methodical and have everything planned out for race mornings so this is what happened when I let one thing slip. I won't be letting this happen every again! Now its back to training for 9 weeks before the world champs. I am fighting the urge to do another race to make up for this weekend but the plan for world champs has always been to get a big block of training instead of racing in the lead up to it.

@LemonRuns