Shan in Japan

Just got back from a top weekend out in Nagano - Otaki village. After picking up little sister Eloise from the airport on Friday evening, I dragged the jetlagged girl out of bed at 3am the next day to head out to Nagano.

Swung by Meguro to pick up team mate, Kohei, and proceeded to the Chuo expressway where we gunned the sturdy rental van all the way to Otaki for the 9am start....so we thought.

Arrived at the race site and things were looking very quiet... "The race has already started, they all left about 20 minutes ago", we were told! Crapola!!!  Kohei and I threw our gear together and without a warm-up, hastely headed off to catch the rest of the racers..

Prior to this story, it should be known that we had intended to participate in the 'main' event on Sunday. The main event is an 80km course over 12hours or so. However, due to our teammate Fabien pulling out due to injury, we could not participate. As an alternative, the race organizers said we could do the short 'beginners' race on Saturday, which requires only two race members.

So there we were, peddaling like mad to catch the rest of the pack. After about 20 minutes, we managed to catch a few of the stragglers at the end of the pack. Soon the course narrowed into tight single track, so it was hard to overtake the slower racers. It was really beautiful scenery following the river up through the valley. We dumped the bikes and started the trail run. The sections were really short (entire course was about 30kms) and most of the other racers seemed to be walking, so yes - this really was a 'beginners race'!

Kohei and I were fired to get to the front. After the river run section we were back on the bikes and blasted down the hill. It was when we got to the next check point we realised we were now in 4th place. This was too easy we thought. We overtook the rest of the teams and were about 5 minutes in front by the time we got to the kayak section. A quick little paddle around the lake and we were on the home stretch to the finish line.

1st place and a 30 minute late start!! We were very stoked with that effort. Our bubble was slightly popped when the officials decided that due to our checkpoint cards getting wet (well there was a river section where you get wet!?), one of the checkpoint cards could not be separated (kind of turned to mush) therefore we were given a further 10 minute penalty. This officially put us in 3rd place....

Considering we were supposed to do the main race, we didn't mind (by now the beer was flowing and we were in good 'sportsmanship' spirits) stepping down to 3rd place to take the bronze.

Standing on the podium and receiving a medal, as well as some prizes, is great no matter what place you are. That evening we ate lots of food, drank some (more) beer and were fast asleep by 8:30pm.

Sunday was a much more relaxed pace. After a nice 11 hours sleep, we had breakie and took a drive up to Mt. Ontake. On the way we found some great waterfalls - see photos here

Detoured through Matsumoto to see the Castle on the way home. Eloise was snapping shots and peering through the lens of her new camera at every given moment.

Should be updating this soon with more links and photos of the race. This will be my last race for the season and, in Japan for some time. I'm so happy everything went so well.