The Osaka Marathon Wasn’t What I Expected

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Well the weather wasn’t great for a marathon but, I’m really happy with how it all went! This is my 4th marathon (3rd in Japan) and the crowds and volunteers never fail to disappoint! Thank you to everyone involved to make this such a positive experience!

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Today’s the day!
Not great conditions 
for a marathon.
I don’t know why. I always get emotional.
It’s getting so crowded here. 
Oh, I’m really feeling it.
Come on.
Chris?
AH!
So,
today’s the day!
Ahhhh!
How do you feel, Chris?
Nervous haha.
Nervous? Yeah.
So, this is Chris’s first marathon.
We didn’t really get to finish all of the long, long 
runs.
Normally before a marathon in the training,  
you’re supposed to run up to 32 km,
but I think Chris only ran a half marathon.
I think I ran about 26 km.
Apparently, my Garmin says I can run 
it in 4 hours and 15 minutes.
Which I’ll be happy with that time.  
Yeah, I originally planned 
to do like a 4, under 4hour marathon
Sub 4.
And then uh, I don’t know, as training went on,
I quickly realized that
I don’t know if that’s going to be possible for me.
Gold goal is, yeah sub-4, 
and then maybe like 4:15,
and then, uh, my bronze goal  
is just to beat my 4:27
which was my time in the Gold Coast Marathon. 
Unfortunately, the weather is  
a little bit s**t today.
It’s not terrible. It’s not like raining really heavily,
a little bit s**t today. It’s not terrible. It’s 
not like raining really heavily, just a light  
sprinkling rain scheduled for like most of the 
day. I had a big breakfast, I did my morning poo,  
which is not TMI, that’s exactly the right amount 
of information for marathon runners. We got to get  
going, I gotta do this real quick. But here 
is the gear for the day.
All my three gels from  
the best gel company ever. They’re actually so 
tasty, it’s crazy. My asthma inhaler, this is my  
asthma inhaler for during the race. Electrolytes. 
I don’t know if I’m going to take this with me,  
probably not. Sunscreen, the best one. Bodyglide 
for chafing, we don’t want any chafing. Lip balm,  
obviously, tissues, and then…
my outfit!
Provided 
by none other than Lululemon. The only athletic  
wear that I ever want to wear is Lululemon.
For any kind of athletics or 
sports or whatever. I’ve been wearing them my  
entire marathon training. I’ve actually… the 
pair of pants that I’ve been wearing my whole  
marathon training, I actually bought them when 
I was, I think, 16, and I’m 31 now. 15 years,  
and they’re still in such good condition, it’s 
actually insane. I’m really, really, really happy  
to be working with them for this video. It’s 
not sponsored, but they did gift me the outfit,  
which is just so amazing, so, so, so nice. 
What are these called? Fast and free? Anyway,  
but they’re awesome ’cause they’ve got like seven 
pockets on the outside. I don’t have to carry my  
gels and everything like in my pack, I can just 
keep them in my side pockets, which is amazing.  
And to top it off, unfortunately, this one isn’t 
Lululemon, but considering there might be a little  
bit of rain today, I’m also bringing this, which 
is literally the most convenient wear item I have  
ever seen. It’s from Family Mart, and it’s just 
like a little rain jacket, but it’s really thin,  
it’s really lightweight, and it obviously packs 
up into a tiny little ball like this. So, yeah,  
I’m also bringing my backpack because I couldn’t 
figure out a way to carry my GoPro on the selfie  
stick. I’m really hoping that I don’t, like, 
chafe from it or something. But I gotta go,  
I gotta go!
The train was packed, and then I was 
like, "hmm, I wonder if everyone’s just going to  
work", and then we stop here and everyone 
gets off the train. There’s 34,000 people  
running in the marathon today, which is a big-ass 
number. You can see the castle in the distance!
Oh boy. Not great conditions for a marathon, 
but it’s okay, it’s lighter rain than before.  
I’m taking every little bit of optimism I’ve 
got left in me. We’re going to have fun. Ah,  
the line for the bathroom.
A pretty cool 
baggage drop-off area. It’s so busy.  
I heard on the speaker, there was a voice 
that was like, "There’s an increased risk  
of hypothermia today, please be careful. If 
you start shivering, let us know."
I’m like "I’m already shivering!"
Ah it’s starting, it’s so cold.
Why 
are we running already? I didn’t think we started  
It begins!
Everyone gets so into it, 
I love doing marathons in Japan,  
it’s so good. The cheering was 
good in the Gold Coast Marathon,  
but nothing beats that Japanese spirit. I don’t 
know, they just give it their all, it’s amazing.
It’s getting so crowded here, I’m like 
struggling to get faster than a 6:40 pace,  
there’s just so many people, just got really 
narrow all of a sudden.
Dodge and weave, dodge and weave!
Why does everyone stop all of a sudden? Oh, are 
you kidding? What the hell is this? Ah, no,  
we’re good, keep walking, don’t need 
water yet.
6:05?
I not even close to the pace I want to be at. 
The road finally widened up! I can actually breath.
That was getting really frustrating for a second. 
We are 55 minutes into the run.
Pace 5:45,  
not bad, not fast enough.
But feeling good! Feel pretty good, yeah.
Time for the best running gel ever.
It’s actually kind of decent. 
Crazy.
The volunteers are so awesome, so nice.  
Wow, that was like the best cheering team 
ever. That was actually the Lululemon team,  
such a good boost to morale.
20Kms down, definitely feeling it,  
but morale is still high, 
and that’s all that matters!  
Hip flexes are tight! Toight like a toigger.
Oh my God, Ronald McDonald.
All right. 28kms in.
from here on out it’s just "gaman", which is 
Japanese for "just keep pushing, push through  
the pain! Hold on!".
This is when we need to pull it out. 
I keep getting the urge to stop, and I have to  
keep saying no to that urge and keep saying yes to 
running. We’re running, we’re running, we running.  
Oh, we’re here, the big old uphill!
32kms in and 
there’s a huge uphill.
Nice airplane!  
10kms left, 10kms left.
I’m a mess, everything is going 
everywhere!
Chris!
Okay that helped!
I got about 5Kms left, it’s getting  
hard. Come on. Digging deep.
Just going 
to give it all, give it my all. Come on! I can see  
Nearly there!
I can see the castle! Oh my God.
200 meters left. Oh, I can 
see the finish line.
This is it!
You know the time on watch? 4:15!
I beat my personal best!
Oh my God!
Wait, wait, wait, I need to stretch.
Isn’t it like a crazy feeling?
It’s such a cute little medal! 
Oh yeah! Isn’t it all worth it just for the medal?  
For the glory!
Oh I’m suddenly freezing cold. What 
an emotional roller coaster this marathon was,  
they always are. Chris and I sit down in a minute 
to talk about our experience in the Osaka marathon  
and things that we would change or do better 
next time. But first, I want to talk about a  
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Storyblocks for sponsoring this video, and now to 
Chris and my thoughts on the Osaka Marathon. Okay,  
just recorded the whole thing, and we’re going to 
do it again ’cause Chris’s microphone wasn’t on,  
that’s okay. So, it is now officially 1 week since 
the marathon, we have nearly completely covered,  
considering we like actually couldn’t walk at all. 
Chris, how was it, your first marathon experience,  
what you think?
The first 30k was actually, I 
was really enjoying it, really having fun with  
everybody cheering you on and seeing friends. 
The last 12 was just struggle.
Struggle Street. Yeah those last 10kms, man!
It’s a pretty crowded marathon though,  
definitely. I heard the same thing about Tokyo, 
for Osaka, like there was probably like the  
first 6 km or so was very busy, a lot of people, 
um, we passed a thousand people,
from the start to finish.
We didn’t see any toilets without a line until like  
the 35 km mark. If you are going to be running one 
of the big marathons in Japan like Osaka or Tokyo,  
you’ll have a great time and people will be really 
friendly and and you’ll have a lot of energy, but  
unless you’re right at like the start of your 
starting block then you may not get like the best  
time or PB or anything like that. We followed the 
Garmin marathon training schedule like on their  
website. I think we followed like Novice 2,  
I think it’s called. It’s pretty cool. it’s like, "Today you’re running intervals," 
So we’ve got the Garmin Forerunner 255.
So I found 
it really helpful, really, really useful. I’ll  
use that again for sure. It said that I’d run 43 km,  
but the heart rates were definitely inaccurate. 
It said I was going at like 200 BPM for like  
most of the race, which is definitely not true. My 
outfit from Lululemon, thank you again Lululemon  
for gifting the outfit. It was perfect. I’m sure 
if you’ve done any like long-distance running,  
you’ll know that’s really annoying will  
cause a big issue for you later in the form of 
like chafing. So yeah, I didn’t get anything like  
that. It was all like really comfortable, really 
perfect. And yeah, I think that’s pretty much  
it. Chris, would you run another marathon again? 
Yay! It’s like such an achievement when you finish  
it. You get a medal. The medals are so cool! How good? Wow. They’re so cute!
It’s got the course on the back!
It’s a very nice medal!
Yeah. Cool. That’s it!
Thank you so much for watching. I hope you’d liked this video.
I did my best. To try and make it look good.
Considering it was such a terrible day to run a marathon.
If you’re new here, I mostly do videos like in Japan.
It’s not specifically like fitness or running-related,
But I do do some running and hiking and that kind of thing.
if you like this video, you might enjoy 
my video where
I ran, my first real long trail run  
running through the mountains in Kamikochi.
So please go and watch that one if you want.
Might be on Chris’s face right now.
And go follow us on all 
of the things. Um, if you like this video, please  
leave a big thumbs up and subscribe if you want 
to see more,
and I’ll see you guys next time. Bye!