Back in Tokyo

I'm very happy for the adjustable bed from Tempure that we bought when moving here :)
Together with ice packs around the most damages places of the legs life is not so bad after all. I've had a bit of fever after the race but now on the second morning after the race temperature is almost back to normal. I wish I could stay home from work and spend more time in the bed reading but unfortunately I can't do that. It will be a slow robot-like walk to the office today...

Was it worth it? Yes, I think so. It was a fun trip with a great group of people and of course it was an interesting challenge to see if I could make it. I didn't expect it to be this tough on the body but I think this is partly due to the condition I was in last week. It will be a great memory.

Will I do it again? Before the race I thought so, but now I just don't know...

Finish

After a lot of struggle I crossed the finish line of 100km ultra marathon, only 30mins before the time limit 13h. It's been a race with no energy and hurting knees. Anyway, you tend to forget the bad sides shortly, instead I can remember the fantastic scenery this race went throug. That's better to remember instead of all the pain :)

The first full marathon

and it hurts already...

Start

Back at the start but this time we are running. It will be very interesting to see how this will go...

Saroma Lake

And this is the big lake we will go around tomorrow, Saromako. The fact that it is not possible to see across to the other side makes it a bit scary!

Hokkaido

I've now arrived in Hokkaido and been to the starting point of the race to register and pick up the race number. The scenery in Hokkaido is very nice with open landscape and a lot of green nature, I look forward to run here tomorrow. It's less than 12h left to the start (05.00) and I begin to feel a bit nervous. Except for an annoying headache most of the cold I've had during the week is gone, so it should hopefully be ok tomorrow. It's so beautiful up here so it would be sad not to be able to run. Anyway, we'll soon see.

Test new phone

Just testing to use a new phone that I will bring for running in Hokkaido this weekend, if I don't get more sick and have to stay home that is. Been having slight fever this week and been home from work a few days. Still don't feel like running a marathon on Sunday.

If this would have been a gas oven I would have been scared when I came home to see this. Now it was an electrical oven and Maki was using it to heat up the cold kitchen, not to spread deadly gas... Innovative as usual my wife.

Stockholm days

Our few days holiday in Stockholm last week was quite hectic, we didn't even remember to post any pictures to the blog!











This is not from Stockholm! But before going to Stockholm we had a few days up north to visit my family. I don't know why but I usually get to mow the lawn when I come home. Not a very painful work to do though. The small house in the background is the guest house that we've built from an old hay barn, Maki and I usually stay here when we come home.



















Most of the time in Stockholm we spent fixing the appartment. Here Maki with a new technique to oil the floors without getting soar back or dirty hands. After oiling and painting it is now hopefully in a condition good enough for finding a buyer, we'll see next week when the agency will try to sell it.











But we also had to see Skylar (the boat) and take her from winter storage place in Bromma to Kungsholmen where we live and have the summer place. This gave us a short opportunity to go out for a spin around the city, here in the canal between Kungsholmen and Norrmalm. It was really nice to go out for a ride with the boat, this is one of the things I miss the most in Tokyo.











To see Stockholm from the water is fantastic. Here's the view from just outside the city hall.

Now we are back in a rainy Tokyo. In a few weeks the summer will start and it will be hot and humid. Too bad we don't have a boat here :)

On Saturday I will go up to Saroma in Hokkaido for the 100km race starting early Sunday morning. I'll let you know how it goes...

Low standards living

In stockholm we thought we would stay in our apartment one last time before we sell it. It's completely empty so many things are missing that you would be used to have around you in a home. When getting ready for the wedding today Maki realised she didn't have a hairdryer. No worries though, the hot air oven turned out to be a good substitute.

Home brew

After visiting Maki's relatives in Wakasa (west coast) a number of times and always asking to buy some of their stock of well tasting home made plum wine (umeshu, technically not a wine but more like a liqueur) they today sent us a box of around 20kg of japanese plum so that we could try our home brew skills ourselves. So now we have three 8.0L large glass jars filled with about 4.5 kg plum each, lots of sugar and in this case 2 cans of honey and then topped up with white liquor. In 6 to 12 months they should hopefully contain some really nice umeshu. The longer you keep them to mature the better the umeshu will taste. However if you have waited for a year and it taste good I think it will be difficult to wait any longer.

Now it's well past midnight when we've finished and tomorrow morning we will get on the flight to Sweden. We'll have a compact mini vacation up north with my parents, attend our friends wedding in Stockholm and I will go to a training in the south before we will return to Tokyo in a bit more than a week.