Training Update

Less than five weeks to go now until the big event, Gaaaaaahh!!

We're all continuing our training, although hectic schedules prevent us from doing so together at present. Tom is running around his local park, Nigel and Vicky are heading out to the mountains most weekends, Jon is, erm, running for the train to uni, Taro is actually running a whole marathon (!), Takashi is climbing three mountains in Kyushu, and I'm attempting to go to the gym at least 5 times a week, which I'm actually succeeding in doing at the moment.

My body seems somewhat surprised by this sudden flurry of activity - the most exercise I've done since I was 13 years old and cycling everywhere! It's good fun though, and I've met some really nice folks at the gym, many of whom are twice my age ...and twice as fit!!!

The fundraising is continuing, we're over half way now, and I really hope we can hit our target in the few weeks that we have left. If you haven't yet donated, you can do so here - even tiny donations would be very gratefully received.

Anyway, must get on with recording more vocab onto MP3 - essential listening whilst on the treadmill!

First Team Practice: What? ANOTHER hill?

Yesterday saw us embark upon our first team training session - talk about a baptism of fire! The 6-hour trek took us along the North Takao Ridge - a series of endless steep climbs and sudden falls, all on a pretty uneven footpath. It was utterly exhausting! Thankfully the weather was great though - well into the 20s temperature wise, which meant that whilst it was pretty hot, the trail wasn't at all slippery, which would have made it an absolute killer!



There weren't too many slip-ups, apart from when Nigel and Taro decided to do an extra 30km by taking the wrong path; it took us a while to notice that they were missing, something we'll have to work on for the real thing next month! Thankfully sound carries really well around there, so we used a series of high-tech animal calls to locate one another again, what with the unreliable nature of mobile phone signals out that way.


We finished off the trek in style - in a little Japanese restaurant run by a funny old man who liked to give his customers food they didn't order, and then charge them for it. Cheeky devil. Still, he served good beer so we weren't all that peed off!

The fund raising is now starting in earnest - if you would like to help support us and Oxfam Japan it only takes a couple of minutes; we'd really appreciate it.

You can donate here.


Thank you!!