375/53.1/4275/7.9/931

Love those Numbers, and I love Kraftwerk who accompanied me the whole way. What do these numbers represent? 375 is the total number of minutes I ran. 53.1 is the number of kilometres I ran. 4,275 is the number of calories I burned off. 7.9 is my average speed in kilometres per hour. Yes! This is the day I officially became and Ultra Marathon Runner. This is what I've been building up to for the last two years, so to say I feel proud of myself with a burning sense of accomplishment would be an understatement.

I almost called off this ultra-marathon attempt this morning because I woke up to find it snowing. However, after a while the snow stopped and the sun came out so, at 0900, I set off. The first course was from my front door to the top of Mount Rokko. I took this photo, after running through driving snow for about twenty minutes, at the foot of Mount Rokko. Then, despite putting a new battery in my camera this morning, the battery died. Luckily, when I got to the top of Mount Rokko I met a guy who has spent the last three days walking from Tokyo. He took my photograph for me and I gave him my email address. If he sends it, that photograph will replace this blip.

Back in civilisation at 1230 I stopped for half an hour to eat lunch. Then I ran home to drop of my rucksack, camera and wallet. I had only covered 32 kilometres at this point so I had a choice; run my 10 kilometre route and hope to scrape into the ultra-marathon zone, or run my 20 kilometre route and make it a decisive ultra-marathon. I went for the twenty. My legs were aching toward the end so I shaved off a couple of kilometres but, no matter, I had done it!

The cold weather definitely helped me today. I am definitely more suited to the cold than the heat. Call me Ultra Marathon Man. Or call me The Iceman.

Update: Well, the man I met at the top of Mount Rokko was true to his word and he emailed me the photograph he took of me today, 10th February. The last time I was here it was in support of Lance Armstrong. It turned out my faith in him was misplaced. Rest assured, I used no illegal doping methods to get here. Oh look, there's another number to add to the title; 931, the number of metres I ran to get to the top of Mount Rokko.