Andy Sykes’ Tokyo Experience

Tokyo Marathon 2024

The journey to 2024’s Tokyo Marathon started in August 2023 when I entered the ballot. I want to do the 6 world marathon majors so had to enter. On the morning of the 3rd of October, I checked my emails when I woke up and to my surprise I had an email saying my entry was selected. After a quick re-read and a double check with the wife to make sure I was still ok to go, it was time to plan the trip.

With the trip planned it was just a case of working out what training looked like and letting the days and weeks pass.

With the race being held on Sunday 3rd March, I’d booked my flight for the day that doesn’t exist, the 29th of February. I’ll be honest, this freaked me out a bit, it felt a bit Bermuda triangle like. Anyway, the 29th of Feb came and it was time to head to Tokyo.

The flight was around 13 hours, leaving Heathrow around 12:30pm and landing in Japan around 2pm local time the following day. I think I managed around 45 minutes of sleeping on the flight and I was thinking it was going to feel very long but in truth the flight wasn’t that bad.

Off the plane the first thing I wanted to do was to go to the expo to collect the number. I was travelling with a friend who wasn’t running so we headed to the expo by train. If you’ve done any big marathon before that has an expo, then this was pretty much the same. The only difference I noticed was instead of it being all in one big hall, it was split over 2. Number collection itself was a slick process, pick up the number, get the goody bag and then the finishers t-shirt and then head through the hall taking in the opportunities for photos along the way. I didn’t stick around to check the stalls out; I was eager to get to the hotel and check in.

I’d said to Lance, who I was travelling with, that the following day I wanted to do a practice of getting to the start, so we knew for the morning of the race what this journey looked like. So that’s what we did. When we got to the start area on the morning of the 2nd, there was quite a few other people doing a similar thing to us. We got talking to an American couple who were both running, the lady was going for her 6th star. I was buzzing to hear this and it really got me hyped that she was coming to the end of this journey that I’m aiming to be 50% of the way through 24 hours later.

The plan for the rest of that day was to take in a few sights, find something for breakfast the following morning, get some pizza and then try and get some sleep. So, this is exactly the plan I followed. We walked about and saw some of the sights, found what I could for breakfast the next morning. Normally I would have a peanut butter and a Nutella bagel, here was going to be different. None of the shops sold anything similar but I did find some bread and something that was a sort of peanut spread, I also bought some pancakes that had chocolate on them to warm up in the microwave. This breakfast was the best I could do but it did have me wondering whether it would be as good as what I usually eat. We then found a pizza restaurant for the evening and ate very well there. Time to get back to the hotel, do the customary flat lay of the race kit and make sure I had everything packed in the bag I was taking.

It was now 10pm, the equivalent of 1pm in the UK, so I rolled over to close my eyes and get some sleep. I then woke up at 10:45pm! I’d had 45 minutes sleep! I then could not get back to sleep no matter how hard or whatever I tried. I was googling things to help, then on the phone checking socials, checking football scores, I just could not get back to sleep at all. The last time I saw the clock it was 4am, my alarm then went off at 5:50am.

When the alarm went off it was a case of having no choice but to get up and start to get ready. So, up I got, complained a bit to Lance about the lack of sleep, got a shower and got ready. I warmed the pancake up in the microwave, prepared my Maurten drink mix 160 and we set off. I ate the pancake on the way to the train. Everything in Japan is on time so the plan we put in place to get to the start area for when it opened at 7am was absolutely bang on.

As I got to the start in Shinjuku, I had to drink the drink I made as you weren’t allowed to carry any liquids through. At this point I got separated from Lance as this was as far as he could go with me. I kept my bag with me as it had a lot of things I needed to transfer to my pocket.

Below street level from the start was a holding area where there were also toilets. Everything I’d read online was that the toilet queues were insanely long. I don’t know if it was because of the time I got there but there

really was no waiting around in this area, not much in the way of queuing at all. I spoke to Lance to see where he was so I could give over my bag and managed to do this successfully although there was a challenge from one of the volunteers as they thought he was trying to get into the

start area. So, bag now passed on… what to do for the next 90 minutes before the race starts? Find a spot where there was some sunlight as it was freezing in the shade. I had a foil blanket wrapped round me that I took home from the Snowdonia marathon in October, but I was still very cold.

In the start area there were so many people warming up by running around but that really isn’t for me. I’m about to run 26.2 miles, I don’t want to be burning off any of my energy here. So instead, I ate a cereal bar I brought from home and then the peanut spread sandwich I made whilst I sat in one of the only parts of this area touched by the breaking sunlight. As you do, I was checking out people’s kit, who was wearing what and looking to see how many new Volt coloured Alphaflys I could see. There was now about 50 minutes to go so I thought I had better go join the toilet queue.

Unlike any other race I’ve been to, you will not find any male athletes using the nearest bush or wall for the toilet. This is strictly forbidden at this event, and I’m pleased to say that I saw everyone obey that rule. I queued up and this could well have been what I was reading about as there were a lot less port-a-loos at the start area.

Whilst you’re waiting, what are you doing? Well for me I was thinking through the race strategy, what was my realistic target, what did I think was possible on the day and where abouts in the crowd did I want to start?

In the build up to this event I ran the Valencia marathon 3 months earlier on the 3rd of December. I trained like I never had before for that one and got the reward of a first sub 3 hour marathon with a finish time of

2:54:38. Since that marathon I ran only a further 90 miles in December, then picked it up in January with a high mileage month for me of 170 miles and then in February I was going along nicely until 2 and a half weeks out when I just felt really fatigued so gave myself 3 days off. I was about to pick things back up on the Sunday, exactly 2 weeks before the marathon when we had a family issue, and my daughter was hospitalised for the next 6 days. So, this blew apart any plans for a taper. I managed to get out and run one run that was just under an hour that week. With PixieBelle back out of hospital I decided on 3 run days Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of marathon week. So not an ideal taper but family first, running second.

Stood in the queue for the port-a-loo, all I could think about was had I done enough? Life happens and has to come first but now everything was ok at home and I was here, I was heading in to self-doubt. I came away from the final toilet stop and there were 10 minutes till the start. I snapped myself out of whatever I was thinking with the same positive mindset I was using in Valencia… You’ve been here before, you’ve been here recently, it’s been successful, it’s only the same again.

Stood in the crowds I always like to look around. There were people in groups, couples, friends, solo men, solo women, charity vests, club vests and even some fancy dress. There was a recorded message telling runners what to do in case of an earthquake, this was a new one for me, earthquake protocol! The announcer was then on the Tanoy speaking Japanese, but I did manage to make out he said Eliud Kipchoge before a large cheer erupted from all around. Then within the next minutes the wheelchair users set off and then the countdown was on for the start of my race. When the klaxon sounded there was big explosion as the confetti cannons either side of the start arch fired into the air and then raining down on the athletes as they pass through. So as with any race I always like to wish someone good luck, usually back in the UK you're stood with someone you know but here I was alone. So I looked for another solo person in the crowd and gave them a fist bump and said & quot;good Luck". It helps to settle my nerves and I know I'd appreciate receiving that.

Getting through the start was very hard work, as you go through the start arch there are just people everywhere. You have absolutely no chance of getting into any rhythm early on at all. The course itself showed that for the first maybe 7km you are going gradually downhill. Initially I had thought I’ll try and make the most of that but being so congested there was no opportunity. My first KM split on my watch popped up at 5:04, I was targeting 4 mins, so I was already what felt like way off the pace.

From the initial start you take 2 lefts to come back on yourself and head through Shinjuku, once you do get away from this first section you do get to the main carriageways where the road opens up so to this point I was dodging and weaving as much as I could to try and get myself into a comfortable place with a bit of space that wasn’t congested and just go about my own race.

Before the race I didn’t think I would be able to PB, but I had one target, which was to stay sub-3. This meant my pacing needed to be 4:15 per KM or 6:49 per mile at the worst, but I was going out at 4min per KM / 6:26 per mile as I wanted to give it as good a shot as I could on the day.

I got to near 10km at Akihabara and this was the first one of 4 switch backs where you can see runners on the other side of the road. As I hit the 10km marker on the road I saw I was already well ahead in distance on my watch, so it was clear I had to ignore the watch for distance and milestone splits and only check for those when I saw the marker on the side of the road. I hit 10KM in 40:46. I was ok with this.

My fuelling strategy for a marathon is a gel at 10K, so the first one of my Maurten 100’s came out and I took it in small doses over the next maybe 6 or 7 minutes. One thing about Japan is that it is very clean, no litter anywhere so I was very conscious not to dispose of my gel packet anywhere but a bin which I did do at the next water station. I’d turned at the switchback and headed on keeping myself at the 4min per KM pace I

wanted. It was in this next section of the race I managed to catch and clear the sub 3 pacing group. As I came away from the switch back, I’d noticed at this point that I had been getting a lot of shouts from the side of the road. I had my name on my Brain Tumour Charity vest and a lot of the English speakers at the side of the road gave me the all-important shouts of encouragement and I acknowledged absolutely every one of them either by a nod, a finger point, a stuck-out tongue or a raised hand. The second switchback was now here at Asakusa in front of the Senso-Ji temple which is a stunning traditional Japanese style building.

As you head towards the 20km marker and over the Sumida River you again join where you can see runners on the other side of the road. The marker on the other side said 28KM, here I saw Kipchoghe and I was well chuffed. I didn’t know at this point he was struggling as I hadn’t seen the leaders, he was the first person I saw so I thought he was leading. Naturally I shouted his name. I then realised it was time for the 2nd gel and that halfway was approaching. I took the halfway marker in 1:25:38 so just outside my target but nothing to be concerned at. The only concern now was how warm it had become, and we were running into the sun. I now started to take on water at the some of the water stops from here till the end.

Heading towards the 3rd switchback I was questioning myself now and thinking through everything. I was doing the mental maths to work out where I was pace wise, how far I had to go, what I could drop to if I needed to so I’d still come in under 3 hours, how much extra distance I had run when comparing watch distance to distance markers. It all gets really fascinating at this point as this for me is where I find the going starts to get tough. From that 26KM marker you know you’re in for the tough times.

I got to the 30KM marker, and I was 2:03:24, and the target was 2 hours flat. It was now noticeably a lot warmer, and it was also time for my next gel. I told myself you’ve got just under an hour to do 12KM, bags of time. My pace had started to drop, and I was averaging around the 4:10 – 4:15 per KM now but this was still fine. It was now just about getting to the finish. I was sure I was going to crack another sub 3 barring any serious issues. I took my gel, got some water, and kept going. Around now you reach where you can see runners turning off to the final straight, but you’ve still got 5 miles to go before you get there yourself, again running directly into the sun. Marathon courses can be cruel, and to see people heading towards the finish knowing you have 5 miles to go needs strong mental resilience.

Around this point I had a tap on the shoulder and an American voice said to me & quote; You’re doing a great thing man (pointing at the charity name on my vest), I had brain surgery 6 months ago, you’re a champ & quote;. I told him my daughter has had 4 brain surgeries and that’s why I’m in the vest. He told me again how amazing it was what I was doing, and it just made me think of the reasons why we do what we do and about my family and Pixie Belle, I was fighting back the emotion now as this random stranger headed off in front of me but wow, this is what it’s all about, that moment!

I was now running on pure emotion, thoughts of home and my daughter, I was losing my pace but was heading towards the last switch back which meant I'd now be running away from the sun. I had one last caffeine gel to take once I hit 35k, so I got it and took it and just basically looked for every one of the KM markers. Each one brought with it a chance to do the math, work out what the time was going to be, am I still going to be under the 3 hours… oh look, there’s the Tokyo tower, smile for a picture… now back to business, will I come in under 3 hours?

A last turn on to the street that runs parallel with Chiyoda City gardens, this is it, just over a KM to go, the street is lined both sides and the crowd was 3 or 4 deep either side. I was running in space; I was happy as I knew the end was coming. It was time to take the seriousness out of it and work the crowd. Waving my arms up and shouting & quote; Come on! &quote; I raised the noise level of the supporters and just had some fun to all the shouts of Go on Andddyyyyy! ; I was absolutely buzzing right now. I saw Lance off to the side and he managed to record a video of me running up this section. One more left turn and the finish arch is in front.

I crossed the line. I was warm but I was very happy. I managed a chip time of 2:57:17 so added a 2nd sub 3 marathon to my name. I did better than I thought I might do. The watch tells me I ran 800m more than I needed to, oh well. As I walked through the finish area, I remember reading there is a bit of a walk to get out, but I didn’t mind. I got my medal, my photo taken, my goody bag, my towel poncho and every single volunteer through this section was very congratulatory to every runner who came through. These guys were awesome. Without them, these events really aren’t possible, and they were just so hyped for us all to have finished.

As I made my way out, I saw Lance and gave him a hug, he was made up for me. All that was left to do now was to celebrate and let everyone in England know how I got on. Tokyo was extremely welcoming; the people are polite beyond belief. There is no litter on the streets, and everything is clean.

I only came for the 3rd of 6 stars, but I left with some great memories, experiences and perspectives. Tokyo delivered in more ways than one.