Kobe Marathon Eve

I thought it appropriate to make my "blog writing comeback" on the eve of the first ever Kobe Marathon. This one will be a big deal for the city of Kobe where live. The first marathon in Japan was run here more than 100 years ago and tomorrow morning, 18,000 runners will start running from Sannomiya to the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge and then finish on Port Island. I will be one of those runners.

This will be my second full marathon in 3 weeks. To be honest, until last week was feeling the effects of Osaka Marathon. Although a great marathon itself, Osaka was somewhat of a personal disappointment. I went into that race sick and weak. I was running strong until a few km's past the half and then I fell apart. I finished in a decent time, but nowhere near my goal.

I'm excited about tomorrow for a few reasons. First, it's in Kobe. I love Kobe. This is simply a wonderful city to live and and I'm looking forward to running on the same streets I have spent hundreds of hours on. I've seen most of the route at one time or another on long runs and there are some great sights.

Another great thing is that some of my students plan to come out to cheer me on. I know where some of them will be and I hope I get the chance to see them.

The finish line is on Port Island and a ten minute walk from my house. That is going to be super great. I can stumble home with ease when all is said and done.

If you are a twitter user you can send me a tweet of support tomorrow morning. You can find me here on Twitter. I use the RunMeter running app on my iPhone and when people send me a tweet, a voice reads it out loud to me. It is a lot of fun. The Kobe Marathon kicks off tomorrow morning at 9:00am Japan Standard Time.

Another little piece of great news. I now, after many years without one, have a laptop. This means that once the busy times at work ease up a little, I will be back to "Teaching Asia: Tales and the Real Deal." my book will be wrapped up sooner than later I hope. A lot of great stuff is already complete and I've almost finished proofreading the first draft. Mind you, I have decided to ad some more to it.