Japan Day 4M Race/Festival

What do you think of when you think of the Far East? I think of martial arts and the one thing I put most athletic training toward until I ever thought about marathoning. That taekwondo black belt is a reminder to me of all of the hours of roundhouses and sidekicks, the stretching, the complex forms, the Saturday testings, the one-sir-two-sir! to Master Rho, the hand techniques, the grappling/sparring...but most of all, the art form and the respect and the honor and the precision mental acuity that all goes into the pursuit of a black belt...which is only the beginning and never the end. It is not about pride, not ever about looking to use it. It is the appreciation of a tradition and a way of life, something that will always be in my head the rest of my life no matter where I go.

I was thinking about that a lot on this day, proclaimed the inaugural Japan Day @ Central Park. The Japan Day Festival was moving in many ways, and for me it was especially because of a karate demonstration by young and old, because of a Samurai Sword Soul play, because we were graced by an awesome culture that prompted these pics and videos below from my Canon PowerShot A540. The one thing I could not capture was the actual Japan Day 4M race, which is a shame because it was such a beautiful day to run. My race time was 37:01 and my pace was 9:15. The time was 7 seconds slower than my Mother's Day 4M time a few weeks ago, and the pace was 2 seconds slower. Thus did I just experience my first real taste of not getting a PR when you are expecting one, and even though my great runner friend George (that's her in the bottom picture here as we had our pics taken with a Geisha!) explained that times were also slower in the front of the field (thanks for trying to make me feel better!), I am just that much more driven to train this week!!! Here comes speedwork! And here is your multimedia presentation of Japan Day 2007: