10km Challenge

Since my high-school age, I've never tried a mid-distance running around 10km. The high-school from which I graduated compelled male students to run 16km (called "10 mile race") as a part of physical education though, after the graduation I have been enjoying a short-distance running typically of 5km. My typical running pace is 4 min 30-45 sec/km.
According to Wikipedia, it is said that the distinction between jogging and running is the speed 6 mph (10 minute per mile pace, 10 km/h, 6 min/km). Thus I'm a runner so far.

This morning I felt a slight hungover　due to drinking a bit heavily last night, but I wanted to switch on my body and mind with vigor. Then I took 10km run. It took 48'43" for 10.02 km. Here is my nike+ipod record. Not so fast but no so bad. My wish is to run a half-marathon faster than 2 hours/20km. It seems doable, doesn't it?
See below for my record and 10km course.

Running around the Imperial Palace

Mecca, a place which an activity or interest is centered, for Tokyoite casual runners (joggers) is the Imperial Palace. Of course, we, general populations, are not allowed to get into the palace. I mean it a round run around the palace.
The run distance is about 5km, that is 3.1 miles, and theoretically no traffic signals which force runners to stop over.

Its scenery is very nice as depicted below.

I and my friend, Tam, tried to get there on April 28th. That was my first run around the palace. I jumped out from Tameike-sannoh office at 5:20M as soon as the last business meeting was finished. There are two runner's stations.
One is near Jimbo-cho station and the other is located at Koujimachi station.
See http://runsta.jp/ for further information, unfortunately in Japanese.

We joined at Jimbo-cho runner's station (3-11-1-1F Kanda Jimbo-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. TEL: 03-3264-0089), and payed JPY700, with which we used a dressing and shower room and a locker.
Runners’ Station hours of operation will remain:
Monday: not available (Koujimachi station is open)
Tuesday-Thursday: 7am-20pm
Saturday:8am-20pm
Sunday: 8am-18pm

Note that we might have an alternative, which is to chose a public bath which costs JPY400. I heard beforehand that the bath is always busy and clouded by runners because of its high cost performance.

We started running at 18:07pm (according my nike+ipod system) from Kitano-maru park. The course was counter-clockwise as most of runners take.
Nice cool April weather welcomed us and that beautiful experience lasted 25 minutes or so.
Here is my record from the nike+ipod logging system.

According to Wikipedia, the distinction between running and jogging is the speed, where it is defining jogging as running slower than 6 mph (10 minute per mile pace, 10 km/h, 6 min/km). My run was slightly faster than 5min/km, and thus I was a runner on that day.

Celeste... no es un color

According to Wikipedia, Bianchi bicycles are traditionally painted in the highly recognizable "Celeste", (Pronounced che-les-te) a turquoise colour also known as "Bianchi GREEN." There are two opposing legends concerning the origin of this colour - some say it is the colour of the Milan sky, others say it was the colour of the eyes of the former Queen of Italy, for whom Edoardo Bianchi once made a bicycle.

I’d always dreamed to own a Bianchi of ”Celeste.”

The pictures shows a folding bicycle which I bought yesterday for my family’s town riding. See http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=DAhXTCtrVck to know how it is folded.
That’s an OEM of BD-1 (a famous holding bike brand) to Bianchi, manufactured at Taiwan. No matter where the bike was made, I have been loving the turquoise color.

Celeste isn’t just a color but something special which attracts cyclists and make them enthusiastic.

New Year's Day

I've started this blog today, and this is my memorial posting. For most of Japanese, new year's day is something special for which we commonly put a wish list, say -20Lbs diet or quit-smoking.
On new year's day, I put not so special but a gentle wish list. That includes "making a good research" and "keeping work-out." For the latter wish, I took a bicycle ride for one hour, 30Km (20 miles) around Tokyo Bay along Route 357. The picture on thetop was taken from Yokohama side to view Chiba Prefecture and the bottom one was to view Yokohama Hakkei Ireland. It was one of chilly cold winter days , 5 degree in Celsius though, I enjoyed riding.



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