Race Date: Sunday 1st March 2026

You know how sometimes marathon running can feel almost effortless? Like you’re moving without even thinking, in some sort of “flow” state? Unfortunately, my Tokyo Marathon experience was not like that at all. From early on it felt like a gruelling battle between heart, mind, lungs and legs, all shouting over one another, arguing over whether to keep going, speed up, slow down or quit completely.

It was always going to be tough. March 1st is early for a spring marathon, and means training over Christmas and the depths of winter. Short days, bad weather, and the inevitable disruption of the festive season didn’t do my motivation a lot of good. I rolled into my training block off the back of a good run in the Bamburgh Castles Half Marathon in October, focused on getting two good quality marathon sessions in each week before Christmas. Once the Holidays were out of the way, it was all about building volume, and I managed to string together a couple of months of gradual progression, including 3 peak weeks of 53-56 miles (not high by any stretch for most marathoners, but beyond what I’ve done in previous blocks). Shout-out to Matt Spoor and Rhodri Moss for jumping in and keeping me company on a few of my long runs and longer interval sessions during my last few weeks as they started to ramp up their own preparation for London. Having taken a year off the marathon in 2025, I thought I’d be excited to give it another go but, in truth, this was the first time that I’d just not enjoyed the training all that much. That said, I was willing to “trust the process” and as the end of February approached, I felt confident that I was in really good shape to have a go at a PB effort. (Existing pb 2:36:31).

For each of my previous abroad marathons, we’ve flown out towards the end of race week, a couple of days before the marathon, and extended our trip post-race to make the most of the opportunity to celebrate. However, with Japan being the furthest we’ve ever travelled, we decided to fly out a whole 8 days before the marathon to give me plenty of time to get over the jetlag, adjust to the time zone and settle the nerves. I was a bit worried I’d feel overwhelmed by the culture, cuisine and general scale and busyness of Tokyo, but I needn’t have been concerned. Sure, it’s absolutely massive and there are whole cities built in tower blocks, millions of people passing through train stations and road crossings, and lights and sounds everywhere. But it’s a strange kind of “organised chaos” – everything just works. Flying out early meant that before Tokyo we could visit Osaka and Kyoto.

Osaka, like a smaller version of Tokyo, filled with bright lights, bustling neighbourhoods and food stalls everywhere was a great introduction to Japan. I passed on the takoyaki (fried octopus balls), but tried the okonomiyaki (a Japanese omelette), though only once… The grounds and gardens of Osaka Castle were a nice break from the city, and we happened to be there on the same day as the Osaka Marathon which added to my excitement for Tokyo the following week.

Kyoto was a totally different experience to Osaka. Though still a sprawling city, it wasn’t anywhere near as built up and felt a lot more historic. It’s also the birthplace of the ekiden (long-distance relay races). Our few days here were spent exploring Nijo-jo Castle, the Arashiyama bamboo forest, the Golden Pavillion and the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine with its thousand torii gates (traditional Japanese gates found at shrines symbolising the transition from that that trail up the mountainside.

By now, I was beginning to realise that there was simply no way I was going to have a restful couple of days before the race. I wasn’t going to miss out on the once in a lifetime opportunities for sightseeing to perhaps save a few minutes or seconds for race day. I can always choose to run another marathon closer to home. And so, on the Friday of race week, we headed to Tokyo. The weather was amazing, warm for the time of year, and the views of Mount Fuji from the bullet train were amazing. We arrived at our hotel in Shibuya, home to the famous Scramble Crossing, and set out to explore the area for the afternoon. I bet we weren’t ever more than half a mile away from our hotel at any point, and yet we still racked up miles of walking, venturing up and down the towering malls, urban parks, and side streets crammed with izakayas and restaurants. Waking up and heading to the expo on Saturday, it all started to feel a bit more real. The expo was about 45 mins out of Shibuya, at an enormous exhibition hall, the Tokyo Big Sight.

The expo itself didn’t feel all that big, but the venue was massive and I can’t  imagine that any runner appreciated the 15 minute walk from the train station to the entrance and bib pick-up. Like everything in Tokyo, it was meticulously organised and very easy to navigate. I generally don’t care much for the expo experience; they’re always so busy and overwhelming with brands pushing their latest and greatest products. One quick walk round and it was back on the bus to the Ginza district to see the Seiko building with all of the runner’s names printed on the window and do a recce for where I’d meet Meg after the race. The grounds of the Imperial Palace were great for an afternoon rest in the sun, before heading for an early pre-race dinner. I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to find something like my usual meal, so I’d pre-booked a pizza spot ahead of time. As it turned out, we saw plenty of Italian restaurants dotted about town, so we shouldn’t have worried!

I slept pretty well and woke up on race day feeling calm and confident. I’d managed to stock up on a breakfast of bananas, granola and yogurt from a nearby Starbucks, and had brought some pre-race snacks from home. Though the onigiri rice balls, available from the hundreds of ‘konbini’ convenience stores across the city, also made for excellent fuel and became a bit of an obsession throughout the trip. The race starts at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building in Shinjuku, just one stop north of Shibuya, so it wasn’t particularly early or difficult to get there. Although, it did take me a while to figure out how to get out of what is apparently the world’s busiest station! Like the expo, the start area was brilliantly organised. I probably arrived about 90 minutes early and sat in a slither of sunshine in my corral with my snacks while everyone else messed about with bag drop-offs and nervous warm-ups. The time passed quickly and before I knew it we were lined up listening to some very formal sounding speeches and announcements. I’ll likely never run another marathon that comes with a natural disaster cancellation plan again! Just before 9:10, the wheelchair athletes set off and the elites came to join the start line. By now, it was already starting to feel quite warm, with not a cloud in the sky. It had been 20C on the Saturday and was forecast to reach 17C on race day. The countdown followed very quickly after and before I knew it, the gun went off.

Tokyo is famous for the confetti that rains down on runners at the start, symbolic of the blossom. It was fun, but a little disorienting along with trying to navigate the crowded first couple of hundred metres of the marathon! The first 5km is largely downhill, and I was conscious of not pushing too hard. I aimed to try and track to 2:35 pace, and felt ok for the first few miles. 10km in though, everything changed. My legs just felt like lead, no doubt as a result of all the walking over the previous 8 days. I’m sure I’ve felt like this in a marathon before, but not usually this early – maybe with 10km to go, not 10km in! It dawned on me very quickly that this was going to be a tough day at the office, especially with the temperature rising, so I cut the pace back to something I thought I could maintain for as long as possible. My breathing and heart rate felt fine, I just couldn’t turn my legs over anywhere near as quickly as I’d have liked. After the first 5km, the course is mostly flat, with a few bridges providing some undulation here and there and three hairpin corners on each of the out-and-back sections. The route offers great views of the Senso-Ji Temple, Tokyo Sky Tree, Tokyo Tower and passes through the famous neighbourhoods of Akihabara and Nihombashi and so much more, though in all honesty I didn’t take it in as much as I should have done. I was just concentrating on making it to the next mile marker, then the next, using the aid stations and handouts of Pocari Sweat (an interestingly named and surprisingly tasty Japanese electrolyte drink) as target checkpoints. I made it through halfway in about 1:17 and was managing to keep my pace at around the 5:50-5:55 mins/mile range.

But things fell off a cliff pretty quickly after that. By mile 17 (27km) I felt like I was hardly moving. Meg was waiting for me at the 30km mark and offered great encouragement to which I replied with a shake of the head and words to the effect of “I’m finished”. Miles 17-21 saw my pace drop to just under 6:30/mile and, by this point, I made a deal with myself to not walk until I reached 5km to go. I’d read a lot before the race about the crowds and atmosphere being quieter and more subdued compared to the other majors, London and New York in particular, but I didn’t feel that at all. In fact, when I was really struggling and had adopted a run 5 minutes/walk 1 minute tactic during those last 3 miles, it was the passionate encouragement of the locals that lined the streets around the Imperial Palace that got me over the line. In all honesty, I got a bit emotional as I approached the finish at the iconic Tokyo Station. Probably a mix of disappointment that things hadn’t gone according to plan, pride that I was able to grind it out to the finish and, most significantly, gratitude to have had the opportunity to run in Tokyo, complete the original 6 marathon majors, and experience everything I had on this trip and each of the others over the last 5 or so years. Official finish time: 02:46:36.

It felt like a long walk through the finishing corral to collect my race and 6-star medals and all the other paraphernalia that comes with finishing a race these days (including bath salts and laundry detergent – why not?!), and an even longer walk trying to find the pub I’d scouted for post-race drinks that was hidden in the depths of one of the malls below the station. Needless to say that first beer (the first of many) tasted superb. And in an attempt to embrace the local culture, of course a session at a nearby karaoke bar topped off the celebrations!

Sometimes a marathon is more than just a 26.2 mile run. It’s a trip of a lifetime!