Japanese with anime voice: episode10
Hello, I’m Sachi.
During the New Year’s holiday, I ate, slept, and did not leave the house, and then I got the flu and was bedridden for a long time, so my leg muscles lost a lot of strength. Just a little bit of walking makes my calves ache like sore muscles, and it hurts like hell. When my partner was brushing his teeth, I stood next to him to brush mine, but my calf was sore and I was in pain, and he thought it was funny. He laughed so hard that the toothpaste got stuck in his throat. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing or coughing. On the contrary, I was more amused by his condition and couldn’t stop laughing. I’m sure that to other people, we looked funny. I don’t understand what he thought was funny about me at all.
I lost my appetite due to a cold after gaining weight during the New Year, so in a sense, I was lucky to have a zero balance this year. My New Year’s Sanganichi routine is to stay home every year, drink, eat, sleep, and drink again. Sanganichi is the three days from the first to the third of January. I would like to say that New Year’s Day is Hatsumoude, but it’s cold and crowded, and I don’t want to go there at that time. On New Year’s Day, there is no TV show I want to watch, so I have to watch movies on Netflix or U-NEXT, but on the second and third days, there is the Hakone Ekiden, you know. On these two days, even though it is New Year’s Day, I get up early and watch the race from the start.
This year was the 100th anniversary of the event. It has been going on since 1920. It’s amazing, isn’t it? In 1920, the year my grandma was born. When I was a child, I didn’t think ekiden and marathons were interesting at all, but now I think they are interesting no matter which one I watch. Should I say that I’ve grown up, or that I’m getting older?
The Hakone Ekiden is a two-day event that consists of five sections from Tokyo to Hakone in Kanagawa Prefecture, and back, with the baton being passed down the line. Every year, this is where the drama is born. This year, however, Aoyama Gakuin was the clear winner at the beginning of the race, so there was not much drama. For example, when the next runner is waiting right in front of you, but there is a time limit, and the next runner has to start running without taking the baton because the previous runner could not make it in time. I usually cry there every year.
The runners are so frustrated and disappointed that they start to cry. And I would get them to cry again. And while I was wiping away my tears, he would always tell me, “If you’re going to cry, you should have worked harder from the beginning”. He is so right, I can’t say anything. LOL
That’s absolutely true, but even so, there are various conditions and other factors at the time, aren’t there? So I understand how runners feel. I have had a similar experience. I mean, it takes me less than 3 hours to run a half marathon, so it’s a bit silly to say that I had a similar experience.
When I was running marathons as a hobby, I participated in my first local marathon. The marathon in my hometown is called the Ibigawa Marathon. It’s not well known nationwide, but it’s quite popular and famous among runners. And the course is so tough that even professional runners call it tough. I participated in a marathon that even professionals consider tough. I always don’t do any kind of research. Even if I receive an invitation to participate, I never read it, and I never do any preliminary research. It’s just too much trouble. And that usually turns out to be my fault.
I entered a marathon without even knowing there was a barrier. The race had a barrier at the 8-kilometer mark. But I didn’t know that, did I? At the 5 km mark, I was running at such a pace that I felt pain in the base of my legs, and it would have been faster to walk. Then someone called out to me from behind. I turned around and saw an elderly runner.
He asked me where I was from, and after the finish line, he said he would like to have a drink with me. I replied that it would be nice, and I ran along at a relaxed pace. Then suddenly a gate appeared in front of me and closed. I said, “Hey, hey, what in the world is that?” An attendant said, “This is the gate, you must stop running here.” I was like, “What?” I was so surprised that all I could say was, “What?”. Because I didn’t know about the barrier.
What’s more, the elderly man who was supposed to be running with me just a few minutes ago was over the barrier gate before I knew it, and he was running away. I thought, “No way, when did that happen?” It was like ドリフ. (ドリフ was a Japanese TV show from the 80’s in which five men would do funny things on stage to make the audience laugh.)
Then we were put on a bus next to the gate. I didn’t even understand what was happening. I was wondering why I was being kept on the bus. I was shaken by the bus and taken back to the starting point, wondering what a marathon was all about. There was nothing sadder than watching a gate close in front of your eyes while running. So it is definitely very frustrating at Ekiden when the runner in front of you wants to pass the baton, but the next runner has to run out in front of you.
I understand. Yeah, I really understand. I understand it very much. My one-man ドリフ and the Hakone Ekiden are on totally different levels…?
