a 'spring' in my step

Hanami party at Konokoen
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Spring recently arrived with its usual Japanese punch, a hefty dose of Cherry Blossom.  I partook in a little "hanami" (flower watching party), an evening of drinking under the blooming 'sakura'.  It was a fun night, especially when proceedings moved to Round One for three hours of arcade and sporting fun.  I found a new favourite, heart racing, arcade game - "jockey".  You literally act as a jockey on a make believe horse and definitely build a decent sweat doing so!

For the past month and a half I, and some friends here, have been training for the Saga Sakura Marathon (not sure why it's actually called that when it's only a half marathon?!..).  Some of us had trained more than others, but, regardless of what pre-game trash talk was spoken we each had our own goals on the time we would like to finish within.

the highlight of the race was definitely the run along the cherry blossom lined river for the last 4kms

the party continues
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Race day arrived with no complications and everyone was fit and rearing to go.  We made our way to the stadium to register and mentally prepare, and we quickly realised the 'Saga Sakura Marathon' is a pretty big deal, with over 5,500 participants spread over the range of events (3km, 10km, half marathon).  The half marathon itself contained just under 3000 participants, a pretty good effort for a Sunday I reckon!

Matt's visiting brother, Chris, Nick and I found ourselves right near the front of the pack with the "hard outs" for the starters gun, a tactic we hoped would prevent us from having to weave our way past people just to get out of the stadium.  It paid off dividends as we got the start we had hoped for and quickly found ourselves outside the stadium and spreading out into our natural rhythm along with the rest of the pack.

a bunch of us before the Saga Sakura half marathon
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It was the first half marathon for most of us, and Chris put in a huge effort to finish as the first foreigner in the super quick time of 1hr 22mins!  I managed second foreigner, two and a half minutes behind him, in a time of 1hr 24mins 27sec.  As I was initially aiming to dip under 1.30, and then I had the secret goal of beating 1.26, I was very happy with my time.  Turns out training really does pay off!  The highlight of the race was definitely the run along the cherry blossom lined river for the last 4kms.  The cherry blossom coupled with the spectators out in force cheering everyone on made for quite the finish (I just wish I hadn't felt like death!)

and we're off
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When everyone had crossed the finish line, and we had sat around in the sun long enough to get some life back into our legs, we headed back to Nicks to get changed and then two car loads of us headed up to Dazaifu, in Fukuoka prefecture, to check out a famous shrine, Tenman-gu.  With cherry blossom in full bloom we had high hopes of seeing something special but alas the vast majority of trees at this particular shrine are Ume (plum) trees and thus had already in January and February!  Still, the shrine was pretty cool, definitely worth a look if you find yourself in the neighborhood, or fancy a day trip from the nearby Fukuoka.  We all enjoyed walking around the temple grounds, keeping our legs moving in a bid to reduce the expected soreness the next day!