18th Nagano Marathon 2016

I can't believe it's over. Done! 42.195km around Nagano, Japan. What an experience it was, and an eventful weekend...Travelling to and from NaganoMy plane was delayed, due to wind. I could see our plane hadn't arrived and I eventually found out that it had made it to Sapporo, but then had turned around and gone back to Tokyo. I won't ever know all the details, but we were delayed by 5hrs. With hindsight, I could have booked the later flight as we ended up watching the 16h15 flight leave before us.No one spoke much English and I showed a lady, also sat waiting, my boarding pass to see if she was on the same flight as me. After trying to get her attention for five minutes thinking 'am I saying sumimasen (excuse me) wrongly? Is this woman deaf?' she nodded and tried to use Google Translate to explain what was going on. She managed to simply turn Japanese characters into our alphabet. I eventually managed to get some fairly incomprehensible translation in English. Five minutes later I saw her sign to her friend. Yes, I had chosen to talk to a deaf Japanese lady.I ended up flying in at night and was stunned by the beautiful lights of Tokyo and how vast the city is; absolutely huge! Upon arrival at Haneda airport I received a text from Eri saying call me as soon as you land. I had an hour to get across Tokyo and onto the last bullet train to Ueda, where we were staying at a very kind friend of Eri's house, about an hours drive from Nagano. I literally ran through stations and thrust my phone, with Eri on the other end, to information staff. They were brilliant in guiding me, buying my tickets and pointing me in the right direction. I made it with about 3 minutes to spare. No sweat.The return journey was much more pleasant. The public transport system is so efficient, with civilised queuing to get on and off trains, a lot of leg room (I thought they were a short nation!) and everyone was so polite and helpful; thankfully, because I was not running ANYWHERE and would not have coped with any pushing or shoving.

It was a very memorable weekend and I am so pleased I completed the marathon after a season of dedicating skiing, socialising and partying hours to running, training and resting - a tick off the bucket list! I am so grateful for all the donations to the Kees Brenninkmeyer Foundation and I know the foundation is also thrilled. If you'd still like to make a donation, please click here, posting 'R Hallewell Marathon' in the comment box. A record of all donations is pinned to my Facebook page here. Thank you.