A couple of weeks ago I participated in the 28th Yokohama Marathon. To be fair though, the Yokohama Marathon is not really a marathon. They have a tendency in Japan to call anything longer than running to catch the train a marathon. The Yokohama Marathon is a half marathon but I didn’t even run in that race. I ran in the 10km race. I know that 10km isn’t very far and I didn’t run very fast but I was happy enough with my performance. I had never before in my life ran 10km in one day, as far as I know. I mean I played rugby and hockey in school and we had to do a lot of exercise in training and participate in other sporting events too but it is a little different from running. I finished the race in just under 56 minutes. I was hoping to finish in less than an hour so I was pretty pleased. I hope to get better time or perhaps participate in the 21km next year though.

At the end of the race we all received t-shirts (pictured above). They are not something I would really wear when going out, or even to the shops for that matter and it is not because I don’t want to be seen as a braggart bcause that doesn’t bother me. I am proud of my achievement and I don’t mind telling you how great I am. It’s simply because it is not the coolest t-shirt. The design is nice enough but it simply looks like a Yokohama souvenir at first glance and I live in Yokohama so that would be pretty ridiculous.

The t-shirt is nice quality though, made by Adidas and has an Adidas logo embroidered on one sleeve with the Yokohama Port Opening 150 year Anniversary mascot printed on the other sleeve. (At least that’s what I think it is. Somebody told me what kind of animal it is supposed to be the other day and I would never have guessed. I have already forgotten what he told me it was.) The blue print on the front is a simple graphic containing recognizable depictions of Yokohama landmarks.

You probably can’t get your hands on one of these as I expect the tees change each year. I am a fan of souvenir tees and used to collect (and wear) band and event t-shirts but I have been trying fairly successfully to stop doing that recently. This though is a sign of my achievement though and I am happy to have it. Next year I will show it to my daughter (she is due in March) and she will look at it and poop her pants. There may be no connection between the pooping and the t-shirt though, but I have heard that babys poop their pants a lot.