Happy New year! At least for a day, I’m back to blogging and excited about it.  I find it interesting that even though I’m living in New York now that my post is about an experience I had in Japan 15 years ago.

The first time that I lived in Japan, I ran on my town’s ekiden team. Ekiden isn’t overly popular here in the US but it is huge in Japan. Ekidens are road relays. Varying numbers of people run varying distances, members trading a fabric sash at each exchange. The teams tend to be from neighborhoods, schools and companies. This is in good keeping with the group oriented nature of Japan. There are many fun quirks about ekidens but one of my most remembered is that the team coaches ride behind you in a van. That van has a big speaker on top and you receive a constant stream of advice and commentary.

At that time I didn’t speak enough Japanese to be given any in depth advice. Usually what would happen was that if my pace was waning, my coach Mr. Eguchi, would chant cadence for me, “ichi, ni, ichi ni”, which means one, two, one two in Japanese. Occasionally, he might implore me to “supurto” or “supurinto” by which he meant to surge (spurt) or sprint. It’s so much more fun getting advice in a foreign accent.

I love ekiden. Running on an ekiden gave me the chance to have friendships that weren’t based on speaking English. One of the pitfalls of being the lone native English speaker (and one person who doesn’t speak the native tongue) in a town is that you find yourself living life one degree from where you want to be. Meaning, for me, that I came to experience a new country. But I came without the crucial language skill to fully indulge in what there was to offer. I was lucky in that Ekiden gave me the chance to make friends and be a part of something that didn’t rely on language. Being a fluent Japanese speaker would have been useful but we made do with the camaraderie of hard work and team membership.

There was one ekiden that we ran from the town of Hita in Oita Prefecture to the town of Nakatsu. The middle of the race descended through a steep canyon. If you know me as a runner you probably know that one of my weaker points is running downhill. Throw a paved road into the mix and it gets a little worse. Mr. Eguchi quickly realized that I was a mess on the downhills and decided that his duty as a coach was fix the problem. In what came to be par for the course in many things in Japan, I wasn’t told about this plan in advance. The evening before the race we checked out the course from the team van. Mr. Eguchi alerted me to my fate. Downhill. Not the worst downhill. The leg before mine was so steep that I had shuddered a little. I would have happily run up it thought. I love a good uphill grind. The leg I was assigned was much gentler. Patches of downhill of varying degrees punctuated by stretches of flat. I wasn’t thrilled but I wasn’t panicked either.

Race day was always an adventure even before my run. There was always a bus ride to the start of the leg. It always seemed like nobody spoke English but I don’t know for sure because I never asked. Truthfully, I didn’t even care. There are many benefits to silence. I just went where directed and followed the flow. Sometimes an assistant coach would show up before my time to run so that I could hand my warmups off just before running. One thing about ekiden is that you never know exactly when your teammate will be finishing there legs. Ekidens are long and there is often no way to guess how your team is doing. Since the races tend to be in the winter, taking your sweats off at the wrong time can be a problem

I don’t remember too much about the Hita-Nakatsu Ekiden but there is one thing that often comes back to me. That thing has become a bit of a mantra for me over the years. I can’t speak for others but when I run downhill and try to go fast it is a balancing act. The pounding forces on the body are profound running down a steep road. I usually try to find a balance between the speed and the pounding. If I absorb too much pounding early on, I struggle later on stretches that are flat or uphill. In this race I was doing my best to honor my coaches request to be faster on the downhill. I was clearly outside my comfort zone but I was also clearly not meeting or exceeding his expectations. He had implored me to go fast by copious ichi ni-ing and had even thrown in some “oi, oi oi” that obviously was meant to inspire me to some greatness that I was failing to achieve.

One thing I do remember about the race is hitting a relatively flat stretch and feeling a hollowness in my legs. I was very wobbly. Clearly, I had pushed outside of the zone of frugality on the earlier downhill but I pushed on. It is amazing how much more one can do in running and life when you just put one foot in front of the other with purpose and move on from what happened in the past. Slowly, I built back a decent rhythm and got in a groove. It was a minor victory and I zipped on. Then, the road dropped into what seemed like a furious descent in front of me. I didn’t remember it from the day before. “Just keep your rhythm and flow down the hill,” I told myself. In my hazy recollection I recall the river beside me wasn’t flowing very quickly. Its low winter flow was picking it’s way through the rocks and boulders at a pedestrian pace. I thought I was doing okay. Better than the river at least.

One thing I do remember about the race is hitting a relatively flat stretch and feeling a hollowness in my legs. I was very wobbly. Clearly, I had pushed outside of the zone of frugality on the earlier downhill but I pushed on. It is amazing how much more one can do in running and life when you just put one foot in front of the other with purpose and move on from what happened in the past. Slowly, I built back a decent rhythm and got in a groove. It was a minor victory and I zipped on. Then, the road dropped into what seemed like a furious descent in front of me. I didn’t remember it from the day before. “Just keep your rhythm and flow down the hill,” I told myself. In my hazy recollection I recall the river beside me wasn’t flowing very quickly. Its low winter flow was picking it’s way through the rocks and boulders at a pedestrian pace. I thought I was doing okay. Better than the river at least.

There had been silence from Mr. Eguchi in the van behind me. He had been quiet ever since I had regained my form on the flat stretch. Now, the cadence counting started again. It was animated to say the least. Soon the cadence call was punctuated with energetic “oi, oi, oi” in place of the numbers. At one point, and it may be a dream, I seem to recall that he switched to heavily accented English and urges” one, two, one two.” I pushed on but it was becoming clear even to me that I was starting to slow down. A runner develops a huge toolbox of positive self talk if they stay with the sport long enough. Even though my tool box is ginormous, I was digging through the dusty, leftover screws and washers at bottom of my tool box trying to find something that would mentally take care of my physical failing. I had two or three kilometers to go and, already, it wasn’t pretty. And that’s when Mr. Eguchi gave me the mantra that stays with me even today.

In English, he yelled “Show more bravery, Kato” (he still can’t pronounce my name correctly 15 years later). Show more bravery…Ganbarre (go for it, do your best in Japanese).” I was caught off guard. I was caught both by the English that felt much more profound than I expected from him and by the fact that I might not be showing bravery. I may have put in a surge and I wish I could say that I rallied and sprinted to the finish. I may have rallied. I may have languished. I’m not sure. I know I didn’t sprint. But, what I clearly remember was the inner discussion hat I had with myself about whether or not I was showing the proper amount of bravery in the race and life. Was I really going for it with everything I had. I also remember coming to the conclusion that I probably was close if not all the way maxed out on what bravery I could muster that day. Furthermore, I decided that there was no harm in rummaging around in the pain, and joy and discomfort a little more just to make sure that that I was making the most out of the moment.

Thanks Mr. Eguchi. Now, 15 years later, I am engaging your words again with the intention of having an amzingly great 2015.