Track and Field Blogs - Nick Arciniaga

Well, it seems to be about time for my annual Blog Post. I got back from my first Trip Overseas just a few days ago and it was awesome. Thanks to the Amazing people at the BAA for sending out to represent them at the Ome 30k in Japan this past weekend! If it weren't for them I would not have had such a great first international race experience. The Ome 30k is the Sister Race to the Boston Marathon, together the BAA and Ome Race organizers work together and send Top American/Japanese Runners to each other's race. I was lucky enough to be considered by the BAA, and I gladly accepted.

My week started off last wednesday with a long, 13 hour flight to Tokyo, then a 2 hour drive to our hotel, which was still an hour away from the city of Ome. It was a lot of travel, much of it was pretty boring since none of my other teammates could join me and my coach, Keith was not sitting in the same section on our flight. Eventually, we got there and then immediately set out for a 7 mile run, which was surprisingly not too difficult, but I was hungry and very eager to try some real Japanese food.

The next 2 days were pretty relaxed, did my runs, checked out the course, and even did a little photo shoot for the Local Sports Newspaper. Race day started out with nearly perfect weather, but the race wasn't scheduled to start until 11:50, and it did happen to warm up to about 65 degree, which isn't too bad, but I ended up a little dehydrated at the end of the race and almost lost my lunch during the Awards ceremony. That would have been embarrassing. In either case, the race went pretty well. The course was very hilly, very similar in many respect to the Boston course, but only about 3/4s of the distance. The first half is Rolling Uphill, then just before 15K we turn around and head straight back.

The Japanese are very aggressive racers, not so much physically, but the go out and get after it pretty early. I knew this going into the race, yet I still ended up running with the leaders through the first uphill 3k in about 9:06, which was 20 seconds faster than I had planned on. I think it was that early mistake that kept me from being able to really take advantage of the later, downhill stages of the course. Nevertheless, Kevin and Keith prepared me well enough to be able to more or less survive the entire 30k without blowing up too much. I did move up throughout the race, but that was mostly due to my competitors going out harder, perhaps even vying for the win for a majority of the race. At the end of the day though, I was very pleased to finish 5th place in a pr of 1:34:25, less than a minute behind 2 of Japan's 2:09 marathoners.

After the race I celebrated by sleeping for about 12 hours, as it turned out my stomach got really messed up from being dehydrated. I wasn't able to eat, drink, much less move the entire night. Fortunately I woke up the next morning and was able to get some food in and felt much better. Then my gracious Hosts moved me to a new Hotel in Central Tokyo, which was about a mile from Imperial Palace. I pretty much spent my last 2 days touring the city, taking some sweet pictures of all the sights I could see, and trying all the Japanese Food I could. I was such an awesome experience and I am so grateful to the BAA(Mike P. and Gloria to name a couple) and my Hosts in Ome(Mr. Yoshibumi Honda, Mr. Masaru Otake, and Sunie).

Then it was another 12 hour plane ride back to cold, wet michigan.