Race Results

Opening Ceremony-

Where various sponsors said "Ganbatte" (Good Luck/Press On).

Temps were -3C/26F at the start - yet some still chose to run in tank tops and shorts! YIKES!

^Starting Line - Here the Elementary students were ready for the 2k Run. 

Lots of baseball teams represented. 

3 KCS students ran - 1 in 4th grade ran 2k (time: 10:14), another in 7th for 5K(time: 28:12) and the 12th grader who got 4th place for the men's 5K (time: 19:28).

I have some great photos of the guys but won't be posting them here to protect their privacy.

A friend took photos while I ran - here is lap 1 - still smiling.

Coming in to the finish - time 29:14 (YEAH for meeting goals!)

Here's my friend Mercy - who also ran the 5K. 

(She is AMAZING - She had 2 hours of sleep and had flown into the country the night before!!)

Besides hanging out with the students, and admiring the Albert Einstein mosaic at the site

 (in photo reflected off the building), 

 I enjoyed watching the "ekiden". Its a long distance relay race.  Today's ekiden had 5 team members running 2K each for a total of 10k for each team.  Elementary through high school teams participated in it.  So fun to watch! Instead of the baton used in short track relays the ekiden uses a sash that runners wear and hand off. 

Japan has a New Year's tradition of having the Collegiate  Hakone Ekiden run over 2 days and televised over New Year's holidays.  It's like the SuperBowl of Japan in terms of TV viewers and popularity.  Each team has 10 runners covering a total of 219km. 

Ekidens are a great example of Japanese perservernce, as well as group identity and teamwork.

As a reward for participating today all runners got a towel that had the name of the race on it.