What he talks about when he talks about running

Estimated reading time:  5  minutes

It’s late February; I’m standing outside the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. Geisha girls are readying the starting flag, helicopters are circling, thousands of people are jostling for position on the track and a typhoon warning is in place. It’s the star of the Tokyo Marathon and I’m in the middle of all this wondering how the hell I got here.

Not literally, of course. The thousands of miles and half-day layover in Helsinki were the easy part. I’m contemplating the idea of a first-timer suiting up and travelling half way across the world to run one of the five majors. If you really want to know – and I’m guessing you do as you’re still reading this – it was an accident, a spontaneous idea that snowballed until I reached this point, surrounded by thousands of Japanese runners, hoping that the approaching typhoon stayed away long enough for us to finish.

So, I’m a writer. Like most writers, I’m fascinated by the process of creating. I’d been given a copy of Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running as a birthday gift. It’s a runner’s cliché I think, but the running was secondary to my interest in Murakami’s inner workings, his Hard- Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is, to my mind, one of the great contemporary novels. Truthfully, it wasn’t even secondary – my edition had a cover with a great piece of illustration. But Murakami wrote so passionately about running – the textures and smells, the experience and how it informs his ideas – that it was hard not to get… well, interested. By the time I’d finished I was intrigued by Tokyo, fascinated that it had such a profound effect on him and his work. I wanted to see more so I searched for the race. The entries had just opened; on a whim, I filled one out and promptly forgot about it. It was as simple as that.

I moved on to other books, other sporting endeavours; a trip to New York. Then the email arrived. I actually didn’t even realise what it was until I opened it.

“Congratulations. You have a place in the Tokyo Marathon.” Or words to that effect.

I can’t even remember what I really thought about for the next 10 minutes, but it went something along the lines of: “What are you thinking? A marathon? How do you pull this off? And why would you even want to?”

Pretty much every doubt, insecurity, and question went through my head until I arrived at the one reason I think is experienced by every person who undertakes a marathon. Why not?

Or maybe not. On the coach ride from Narita to Tokyo city centre, it began to sink in that this was going to be a new and different experience. Four months of running through Hyde Park in London, along Brighton seafront and even across Dartmoor in Devon do not prepare you for Tokyo. Starbucks, McDonalds and Hollywood movies are all there in abundance, but the experience is ratcheted up to 11. There is no foreign language; it’s pretty much Japanese or nothing – and I learned my Japanese was next to nothing! And the food is as interesting as it is strange, especially when you’re trying to hold on to a running diet.

For the warm-up runs, on the advice of fellow runners I went out to western Tokyo, to Shimokitazawa, or “Shimokita” as they called it. This is real Japan: narrow streets, a spider’s web of cables running overhead, a disorganised, chaotic, piece of old-world Tokyo full of local businesses and residents sitting outside their apartments watching the world – or, in my case, a runner – go by. These roads were perfect for running too: small streets, no cars, no crowds of tourists or businessmen. It was bliss. I spent most early mornings running the streets in preparation for the impending marathon. The smell of the city is different too: distinctly Japanese, food and plants combined, with the city not far behind.

I also explored the city. I ran across the Shibuya crossing, stopping at the Starbucks to watch the crowds, through the Harajuku district with all the cosplayers and hipster kids hanging out to get noticed, through into Roppongi Hills, and around the Meiji Shrine, pausing to watch priests perform the most beautiful traditional wedding I think I’ve ever seen.

The race itself? It was painful and exhilarating. There were traditional Japanese drumming bands, there was the Imperial Palace, there was the most excited and enthusiastic crowd runners will ever likely experience… and the best can of vending-machine beer the world has ever known at the end.

So what do I talk about when I talk about running? You’ve just heard it.