Marathon Day

Today was Marathon Day for Yoshiwara High School. We all went to the Fuji sports complex where it was taking place. The route was basically around the track once and then out of the stadium, around the stadium, around the tennis courts, down the street, around the baseball field, back down another street, through the parking lot and back into the stadium. The girls had to run the route two times and the boys four times. My predecessor ran last year so a lot of people expected me to run but I most certainly did not.

My jobs were pretty simple. My main job was to take a marker and mark students' hands when they ran by at the end of one of one lap. This was to make sure nobody hid and only ran one lap or something. So I made marks on people's hands, wrists, forearms, and unfortunately one shirt. I promptly found that girl after the race and apologized for putting red marker all over her gym shirt.

My other job was to shoot the starter pistol at the beginning of the boys' race. Our Kocho-sensei (principal) usually does it and today he came and asked me if there was a specific word in English for the gun. I told him it's called a starter pistol and then went on to tell him that I used to watch my dad shoot them off at the beginning of races. So he decided that because of this, Andrea and I were going to do it today. So Andrea started the girls, and I started the boys. It was pretty fun and made me feel important.

After the girls' race many of them ran up to me to tell me what place they finished. Some of my favorite students (i.e. the ones who talk to me the most) finished as well as 4th to as low as 200 somethingith. But I told them all that they did a great job and was sure to smile and give them a thumbs up because they all like that. (If only it were this easy to make girls like me when I was in high school.) :)

With the boys, one of the students in the class I work with the most got first place which was amazing. First place out of 240 or so boys is pretty good. His name is Shuhei Baba so I think on Monday I'm going to call him IchiBaba. "Ichiban" means "number 1" in Japanese, so I think it's a pretty good play on words, which is not easy to do in Japanese.

I also may have accidentally committed myself to running in next year's marathon. The girls were all wanting to know why I didn't run and I made excuses about how I wasn't in shape which they didn't understand, and then how I have bad knees which they didn't understand, and then how I just plain didn't want to run which they didn't care. So finally I said "next year...maybe." Well they have limited English so they understood the "next year" part but not so much the "maybe" part. And they all got very excited. So I guess I need to run tomorrow and start training.

Here are some pictures from the event:

The students in the stands awaiting their fate.


The "opening ceremony"


Pre-race stretching


More "stretching"


The girls waiting at the starting line.


Andrea starting the girls.


The boys at the starting line.


Me following in my dad's footsteps (apparently) and starting the boys.


As a result of my "hard work" at the marathon, I got released from work an hour early today.　おつかれさまでした！　やった！