Racing in Japan

For the holidays, I'll be taking off to Japan to spend time with my partner and her family (very excited!).

I'll be away for 17 days, and yes, I have my workout schedule planned out.  For convenience sake, I'll give up the bike and pool and stick to running and strength training (super-sets of plyometric jumps, push-ups, pull-ups, core, etc).  The plan is to work-out on 14 of the 17 days varying the distance of the runs, broken up by strength.

The best news of all, while in Japan, I'll run my first race of the year, Ibusuki Nanohana Marathon!  Ibusuki is a small city (about 50,000 people) in the southern part of Kyushu, the southern island of Japan. The area is known for the small, yellow flower called nanohana (seen in the picture below).  The best part, the city nearly doubles in population for the day with 30,000 runners taking part.

I'm not doing much marathon specific training, so no plans for a PB.  Plus, I'm still in low heart-rate, base training mode, so hoping to come in just over 4hrs.

I'll try to keep the blog going while I'm away, but if not, there are a few pre-scheduled posts to tide you over.