Today’s user submitted story comes to us from Marcc, Canadian expat living in Japan. He had the opportunity to participate in the Shin-Tomei full marathon recently in his Vibram FiveFingers KSO and wanted to share his experience with us.
To see more images of Marcc in the marathon and find out about his experience keep reading after the jump!
On November 20th, 2011, Chris, Maria, and I ran the Shin-Tomei full marathon. It was a very good time, indeed!
I ran in silly modern-day jikatabi Vibram Fivefinger KSO shoes. My feet were happy the whole time, and I was, too. My goal, if you can call it as much, was to have fun “training” and enjoy the entire race. My training involved running more-or-less whenever I wanted to run. I didn’t clock in any running times, distances or frequency. I trained, and ran the marathon, without a watch. It was my own neat little personal experiment to see if I could do this thing without keeping tabs on everything and following a schedule. My diet remained the exact same throughout, including pizza the night before.
After the initial “Yay, I’m awesome!” feeling while crossing the finish line, my next thought was “for some reason I thought this was going to be easier.” Though I finished with a smile and no troubles.
After the race, I felt 100% back to normal, though my feet 95% and my left knee 85%. The next morning, my feet were perfect, and I limped a bit from my knee until about dinner-time. The next day I hiked up my favorite mountain.
Yes, that’s me dancing across the finish line.
Dance across the finish line.
Marcc really makes running a marathon look like a lot of fun. I am enjoying running in my Vibram FiveFingers more then any shoes I have come across yet. I have not participated in any marathons or 5k races yet. One of my goals is to work up to running a 5k race. I can’t think of a much nicer place to run a Marathon then Japan.
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One reply on “Running a Marathon in Japan in Vibram FiveFingers”
Cool! Thanks for the post. I loved this running race, and I love reading this site. Good luck with your 5k. I still remember when a 10 minute run left me wheezing for air.
More images (same story) here: http://www.marccocchio.com/2011/11/shin-tomei-marathon-2011.html