Saturday morning started very early for me. Only time for a quick cup of coffee and stuffed a banana in my mouth before heading out the door for a long run. I met up with 3 fabulous ladies at Yoyogi park and my what great company they were! The time just flew by as we chatted the usual girl talk while running an easy gentle pace. 2 of the runners are training for Tokyo Marathon so their goal was to run 2 1/2 - 3 hours. My goal was to see how I feel through 90mins and continue running only if my body felt up to it. I made it 1 hr 50mins and only stopped for precautionary reasons. I was feeling pretty good and damn happy that I was in good enough shape to go that far with ease, but more then anything, my growling stomach prompted me to go home.
I was super sleepy after the run and could not seem to fill the hole in my stomach. I ate A LOT and was hungry only 2 hours later. Eating has got to be the most rewarding thing after a long run :-)
Sunday was another early morning. Motozo and I planed this hike a week ago and we planned to start our hike from 10AM. Our weekly Skype call with the in-laws last longer then planned, so we got out the door a little late.
I was uber excited for the hike! All geared up and ready to go!
Only 15mins later then originally planned. Not too bad! I got a little snap happy and in my clumsiness dropped my precious pink camera and chipped a bit off the corner. Thankfully, the camera still functioned and Motozo and I were both relieved we choose to leave the big expensive camera at home :)
Just a bit over an hour on the train we found ourselves at beautiful Mt.Takao. Takao-san has a couple trails and we choose to be conservative and take a 3.1k course to the peak. Our goal was to breath in fresh air, have fun, and not worry about breaking a sweat. We had a fair bit of hills but an equal amount of flats. It was so enjoyable!
Major dorky photo of me. These stretching arm pics aren't too flattering, but whats a girl got to do when hubby finds photo taking too めんどくさい (troublesome) to bother with.
Half way up we got to see the view of Tokyo. Not THAT spectacular, but we appreciated it long enough for me to take photos.
The map said it would take us 90mins to the top, but we made it up in 50mins. oh, yeah! We were rocking it!
We weren't extremely hungry, but there was an adorable little shop so we stopped for a couple of bites and toilet breaks.
Motozo and his after lunch coffee
I munched on my pre cut veggie sticks.
After relaxing for a bit we consulted the map again and decided which route we'll take back to the bottom. This time we choose a 3.9k course and off we went.
The majority was flat or down hill so I wanted to keep a pretty brisk pace to stay warm! It would be a different story if we were going up hill. But Motozo's knee injury started irritated him not long into the hike and we had to take it easy. Going down hill is definetely harder on the joints.
We admired the very few trees that had any Autumn colors.
And other random stuff.
After making it to the bottom. Motozo gave me his very best Warrior 3 pose.
And I had to take a congratulatory stretchy arm pic.
Motozo refueled on soft cream.
I got me a pomegranate! I haven't had one of these in YEARS and they were selling them at the base of the mountain. How random and utterly fabulous! I've yet to eat this beauty, but when I do, I'll let you know (whether you want to know or not) how it was.
Beer is mandatory after a hike on the train ride home!
So nice! we really wanted to do takao when we were there last but at we went to this other beautiful place near mom and dds. how was the pom?! Max gets my permission to get one every so often cuz they're expensive! I think everyehere in the world hehe. you both look great..nice way to end the hike with beer and icecream yeah!
ReplyDeleteoh and nice stretchy arm pics lol!
ReplyDeleteumm...completely overriding the blog, isn't that called a pomegranate instead of a persimmon?
ReplyDeleteBack to blog.
HIKING! oh man i miss the hiking days, when we would all go out as a group and hike the nearest, most-promising-looking-for-a-hike mountain.
You guys look great, and I need to take a leaf out of Motozo's book and do yoga more randomly and more often, my yoga seems to have taken a rather long hiatus of sorts...
Haha, Thank you Nina. I'm so oblivious to my mistakes and I didn't even get Lilia's hit with the "pom"!
ReplyDeleteYeah, hiking is great. I love it! Were hoping to do it more regularly. The only problem is having to get up fairly early on a weekend and ride the train for over an hour. Ah, its all worth it in the end though.
Yeah, try Motozo's style of random yoga. He does warrior 3 at least 5 times a week :)
He also likes chair and up dog.