Marathon Man

Yesterday, was marathon day at school. For two hours we didn't have class. Instead, we embraced the wonderfully fulfilling activity know only as running. Or, in my case, dawdling. You may be thinking "you got out of two hours worth of class to run an entire marathon? How 'dat be....ain't marathons long?" Good question, Sherlock. Well, you must remember the time difference here and then take into account the conversion of miles into kilometers and don't forget to carry the 1. All that said, the marathon works out to be a brisk 1.88 km. We all know it is human nature to to embellish stories--like how big the fish you caught was, and how pretty your first girlfriend was--but the Greeks really know how to be drama queens. It turns out it is just under 2 kilometers from Marathon to Athens. Yep....true story...at least at my school.

My team consisted of 6 people--me and 5 students (picture below). Azusa (aka Zoom-chan), Yamato (aka Mountain Man), Hidekazu (aka Potato), Tomomitsu (aka The Kenyan), Me (aka Prefontaine), and Hiromi (aka Foresuto Gamupu) made up the red team (out of 7 teams) for this year's marathon relay race. Thanks to strong showings from the first 5 legs of the race, we started the anchor leg in first with a 30 second cushion. Mountain Man was our anchor and our hopes were high. We waited with bated breath (which I wouldn't suggest trying after sprinting several kilometers) as our man was making his way through the scenic mountain course. Our eyes were glued to the final turn as the pink team came peeling round the bend...then the yellow team....soon followed by the sky blue team....which was being tailed closely by the white and navy blue teams. It was discouraging. I wondered what happened to Mountain Man. This was uncharacteric of him. He could run like the wind blows. Did he slip and fall on a pine cone? Did he get lost? We soon found out.


Mountain Man came dashing around the bend, high-stepping and barefoot. He carried his shoes like footballs, and pumped his fists like the pistons in the 2-cylinder cars common here in Japan. He glided over the gravel track like a knife over butter unthawed. It was heroic, and ridiculous. He finished, collected his breath, and told his harrowing story. It turns out just pass Kurosawa's place and before the bridge, Mountain Man's shoes totally obliterated. I looked at his shoes; the tongue was wagging and loose from the unlaceable laces, and the sole was soulless. Frankly, it was disturbing. Thankfully, we still beat the lowly purple team and didn't come away empty-handed--we had to carry Mountain Man to his homeroom afterwards.