Osaka 2007

The World Athletic Championship begins tomorrow. Not only this is the World Cup of Athletics, but this time it will be held in my hometown - Osaka, Japan. Naturally I have a great interest, so I checked the schedule. I found out that the first event is men's marathon, and that comes even before the opening ceremony! This is highly unusual; it's like Beck playing Loser right at the start of the concert (but hold on, I think he did exactly that last time he played in London).

Then I noticed that the reason they start with men's marathon at 7 in the morning is the heat. Osaka is hot in summer, and it has a different kind of heat. When I lived in Japan, I go visit my family in summer, and when I returned to Tokyo I felt cooler. Even though the temperature is not that different, so it must be humidity. And Japan is having THE hottest summer in history. My parents told me they cannot touch the wooden wall inside the house, because it gets too hot! A few days ago I talked about the hot places where it seems crazy to have the marathon, in which I conveniently forgot Japan, but August in Osaka certainly qualifies. So good luck to all the runners tomorrow (actually it has already started because of the time difference). I know you are all elite runners, but I appreciate it will be hard as hell even for you.

Today: 6 miles
Weekly mileage: 52 miles.