Posts Tagged with: "Osaka Marathon"

“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.”
– Bob Moawad

Oh what a journey it has been, 2015! This year was about independence, achievement, strength, and empowerment for me. Such strong words, you say?! After surviving life’s toughest challenges in the past years, 2015 was about pushing forward, rediscovering myself, and learning that, at the end of the day, I’m pretty darned happy with where I am and who I’ve become.

Here’s my best of 2015: (more…)

Osaka Marathon was my 14^th marathon. Each marathon is a special experience, but they all vary because of all the elements that come into play from training to all the little occurrences in each of the 42 kilometres of the race.

For Osaka Marathon, I was just in a happy place almost the entire time.  I think the biggest difference for this race was that my one and only goal was to enjoy it. I only trained 2 months for the marathon because I had previously felt burnt out from previous races. I thought it would do me more harm than good to train hard. On race day, I didn’t put pressure on myself. My pace was relaxed, my mood was calm, and I stayed positive all throughout.

At the race start with Osaka Castle behind me

Luckily for me, everything was smooth sailing. No blisters, no ITB pain, no line at the portalet during the one time I went. Just no problems! Boy was I lucky! My nutrition and hydration plan was perfect. I took 1 GU gel 10 minutes before the race and subsequently at 10k, 20k, and 30k. I carried 8 packs of single serving Gatorade powder with me and took one serving at roughly every 5k of the race. As for my Salt caps, I took it thrice: the first at 7k, 18k, then sometime close to 30k. Hence, no bonking!

My finish time was 4:45, not a PR but not too bad either for someone who sang out loud to her iPod while running! lol. I was smiling from ear to ear as I ran this race and, in the end, it helped me remember exactly why I’m just madly in love with the 42k.

Thank you, Osaka, for the memorable experience!

Here goes my race review for Osaka Marathon: (more…)