Most will know that I love reading, and I just had to mention it when I read Patrick Rothfuss’ blog update on his second book.

The Name of the Wind is one of my favorite fantasy books, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting news of when the second part of the trilogy will come out.  Though there’s no publishing date yet, it sounds like it’s finally nearing completion!  That was exciting enough, but he also mentions that:

The Wise Man’s Fear is going to be bigger than The Name of the Wind by at least 100,000 words or so.

That is just incredible.  The Name of the Wind took me a long time to go through, mostly because I enjoyed it so much that I deliberately tried to hold back and savor it rather than my customary speed-reading. That book was over 600 pages long, and if 50,000 words equals roughly 150-200 pages, then that’s another 300-400 more pages in the second book!

The second book has been a long time in the making, but if the quality of the book is on par with The Name of the Wind, and is LONGER to boot, then I can be patient.

I can now scratch off one of my resolutions for the year – that of completing a full marathon.

It’s the first time I’ve EVER done this, and I’m feel pretty proud of myself (feeling pretty sore too).  My time wasn’t that great – I came in around 6hrs 41mins – and the cutoff time was 7hrs.  To be honest, I barely made it.

The primary reason it took me so long was because my bum knee kicked in at around the 12km mark.  I started off slowly, but it just started hurting again at a quarter of the way in and from that point I was forced to run/walk/run/walk the remainng 30km.  It was incredibly frustrating.

Another reason I took so long was because it took my “block” 20 minutes to even get past the start line!  With so many runners (30,000+) I guess it couldn’t be helped, but next time I hope to be placed somewhere closer to the start line so those 20 minutes aren’t lost.

The final reason I was so slow was… call of nature.  At around the 12km mark, I figured I’d stop and line up for a bathroom break, and give my knee a few minutes to rest up at the same time.  Bad idea.  I ended waiting at least 20min to use the bathroom, and that was the reason I barely crossed the 15km line before cutoff.

There were multiple cutoff points along the route – 15km had to be completed in 2hrs 38mins, and as you can see in the table below, I made it with NO time to spare.  In fact, I was the last one across that line as I dashed through just as the officials were roping off the 15km point – if I’d been 30 seconds slower, it would have been the end of race for me.

That actually put more pressure on me, since I didn’t have any more of a “buffer” between the cutoff points, so I just kept going on – no more bathroom breaks for me!

I think the hardest period was the 25km to 30km period.  By then I was tired, legs were burning so much that I couldn’t feel the knee pain anymore (since EVERYTHING hurt), and I also started getting lighted-headed as energy levels were dropping.  I recall staring intently at every single eating spot I ran by (some of which were emitting some wonderful smells…).  Luckily I had some energy gels that my coworker had given to me, and those helped carry over that rough patch.

From 30km onwards, I knew it was in the bag.  12km is about the equivalent of 2 laps around the Imperial palace so it was just a matter of taking each kilometer as it came.   At that point, it was really a matter of willpower.  I think I even managed to speed up (from a walk to a hobble) because my legs were so dead I couldn’t feel much.  That, and the end was in sight.

Though it was bad for the runners (it was raining and very cold), the spectators probably had it just as bad as we did.  At least the runners warmed up from the physical exercise.  The spectators though, had to stand there, huddled under umbrellas, and cheer us on.  I’m really grateful to all the people who held out snacks of chocolate and crackers – particularly towards the end, those snacks gave me the last bit of energy I needed to keep going.  It was incredibly cheering to see people (including families and children) shouting “Gambare!” “Fight, fight!”.  I even pet a dog that one man was holding up.

All in all, it was an incredibly challenging experience.  Would I do it again?  Probably!  I do plan on training a little better this year though – AFTER my legs recover.  Despite the pain, it’s just something I can feel proud of doing, of pushing myself hard, and making it to the end.

For those interested, you can click on the link below and enter 6hrs 41min (as shown in the image) to see a video clip of me as I cross the finish line.

http://www.ntv.co.jp/tokyomarathon/goalmovie/

I  can’t believe it’s already been 10 days since my last post, heck I can’t believe we only have 2 days before February is over!  It has been a busy period recently, and I’ve been too tired to do much in the way of posting.  I wish I had more energy though – I will hear, or read, or see, or experience something and I will often think of writing about it… only to put it off for the above reasons.

I just wanted to mention quickly that the Tokyo Marathon will be taking place this Sunday.  I and 5 other folks from the office will be participating!

To be honest, I’ve done little to nothing in the way of practice this last month due to a knee injury I sustained during a 20km practice run in early January.  So I’m actually a bit worried about how I will handle 42km… my only “strategy” is going to alternate between walking and jogging, hopefully with more of the latter.

My only goal is to FINISH.  Though the 8,000,000 prize money would be something spectacular, I don’t care if I’m dead last, I don’t care if I have to limp or crawl the whole way – as long as I cross the finish line before the cutoff time, I will be satisfied.

Wish me luck!

A friend of mine (Michael, of emuu.net) has just made public a new venture that he’s been working on for a while now – jewelry!  Specifically, he’s gone into the diamond ring business.

I’m no authority on diamonds, but the prices look quite reasonable for Japan, and he offers various levels of customization to match one’s budget and style.   So, if there’s someone for whom the wedding bells will soon be tolling, check out Caritas.co.jp – you might find your perfect ring there!

(and no, I’m not getting any kickbacks from this post – I just like shiny things)

Came across this link of images taken from a helicopter during the attack on the WTC buildings.  There aren’t that many (only 13) but are a reminder of the devastation on that day.  It’s hard to believe that almost 9 years have passed since then.

Rest of images can be found here: http://www.reuters.com/article/slideshow?articleId=USTRE6195G920100210#a=1

This had my brother and I in stitches!

Matrix Karate was also quite funny.

Headlines such as this used to be like something out of a science fiction movie, just… not anymore.

Pentagon Looks to Breed Immortal ‘Synthetic Organisms,’ Molecular Kill-Switch Included

Postings have been few and far between lately, largely due to laziness.  The usual excuse of being busy at work does apply though (my coworker has been away on holiday for the past couple weeks), and I came down with a cough/cold.  But there’s one more  “distraction” – my youngest brother came to visit!

He’s been here in Japan on vacation since January 29th, and will stay till the 11th of Feb (2 weeks).  Unfortunately since my coworker is out of the office I haven’t been able to take off time myself, but at least we’ve had time to hang out in the evenings and weekends.  It’s mostly been a period of eating (I’mma goin’ onna diet once he leaves!), occasionally going out, and playing PS3 (particularly while I wasn’t feeling too well).

We’ve done the usual karaoke (hoping to squeeze in one more session before he leaves), and checked out Ginza, Asakusa, Tsukiji, Roppongi, and Akihabara.  Yesterday we even went for taichi, despite winds that literally almost blew us off our feet (and it was COLD to boot)!

Places we’ve been eating at are:

• Kohmen
• Sushi Zanmai (though my brother does NOT like fish )
• Genkatsu
• Tempura Funabashiya
• Domino’s Pizza (!)
• KFC (!!)
• McDonald’s (!!!)(apparently there is no fast food in Mongolia, hence the unhealthy food places we’ve visited)

Between today and Wednesday, we’re going to have at least the following as well:

• Cocoichibanya Curry
• Tsuru Tontan Udon

We have taken some photos, but not too many, simply because it’s just so doggone cold/windy.

Putting up the links above reminds (again) that I need to work on that “places to visit” in Japan section of my blog.  Will work more on that in the coming weeks!

Last weekend I suddenly felt like cooking, so for some reason, before I went to bed, I ended up making a large batch of banana bread!

It turned out a little heavier than I would have liked, but it was tasty enough – at least it vanished from the office common area in less than 30 minutes!  I made 2 trays – one batch in a bundt pan, and the other in a traditional pan.  The bundt was the dish I shared at work since slicing was easy, and I…. I confess I ate most of the pan batch myself… (I actually just finished the rest of it today (>_<;

Images below!  (for some reason, it rose extremely well… but after cooling went back down drastically)

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Also, I’ve never realized how much of a difference a good knife makes in cooking.  Yesterday before heading out in the morning for running, I put in the remainder of the Christmas chicken (hey, it was pretty big and took a long time to eat!) into the slow cooker, chopped up carrots, parsley, onions, garlic, and potatoes.  Chopping was EASY!  I’ve always cut my veggies with an old knife that I’ve had for years – and chopping with that could get frustrating because it never sliced straight, and I would always have to put my whole weight down to get it to cut anything.

However, I recently got a new knife from the local supermarket.  They were running a promotion in which every 1,000 yen spent also got you a point.  With 25 points + 2,000 yen, you could get a nice new knife.  Now, I didn’t go and spend 25,000 on groceries just for a knife!  I was lucky – when checking out with my groceries one day, a lady saw me getting my point and offered me about 12 points of her own – apparently she had already gotten her knife and didn’t need these any more – she looked like she had at least 2 kids so I imagine that her grocery bills were much higher than mine, hence why she had so many spare points.

Anyway, I got my knife and boy was I impressed.  It cut through taters and carrots as if they were butter.  It really cuts down on time and frustration!  (“cuts down” eh? pun? Me so witty.. )

Doesn’t the pot of veggies look good thought? I let it cook away for roughly 16hrs and at the end also tossed in a can of cream of mushroom soup.  The combo was nothing fancy, but very filling and has already given me 2 full meals – and I’ve still got enough for another one or two bowls.  (unfortunately forgot to take a picture of the finished dish… was too hungry and just dove right in)

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Oh, and also included are some pictures of chocolate chip cookies I made.  A couple of friends had birthdays recently and I figured I’d bake them some cookies.  Not sure why, but the end result (again, forgot to take pics post-baking) turned out really flat… these were the 3rd batch of cookies I’ve made and the first two turned out nicely, shape-wise.  These tasted good enough, but somehow really flattened out.  I wonder if I used different butter than the one I did last time… that’s the only thing I can think of.  I miss easy access to Crisco… (and no I did not eat any cookie dough – WHO WOULD EVER DO SUCH A THING… though it tastes so GOOD… I mean… not that I would know of such a thing, of course…)

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