Today was the long awaited (and somewhat dreaded) 'Marathon' day at school. All the ichi and ni-nensai students took part, with the boys running the mighty distance 10km and the girls a still-somewhat-impressive 5km. Back in school we only ran 4km and the girls 3km, so it's pretty hardcore here. It wasn't all doom and gloom though - the one benefit of the longer distance was that they all got to go home at lunch time :)

I was invited to run with the students by several teachers, but naturally, the invitation only came last minute yesterday afternoon. Seeing I'd been given no warning and had hence not done any running practice at all, I politely declined. I'm certainly not a good runner at the best of times, but I felt that trying 10km without any training was not a smart idea, especially right before Yuki Matsuri!

So instead, I hung around the quadrant and talked to all my kids, which was great. They're so different when they're not in class - they actually like testing out their English and talking of their own free will, haha. They probably learnt more this morning than they do in a week in class :D Naturally, I didn't get far before I ran into a few of my 'groupies' (students who talk to me a lot), who came rushing up to talk to me. It's always bloody funny talking to them (and the kids in general, really) because they come up with the funniest questions. Amongst others, this time I got asked if I was married!

After a while, the marathon started and the girls headed off, followed by the boys about 15 minutes later. The first of the girls came in at the blistering time of 20 minutes 40 seconds for the 5km. I vaguely recall my times back in high school being about 24 minutes for the 4km (mind you, I was a fat, unfit kid back then as opposed to a thin, semi-fit adult now :D), so I was very impressed.

I was similarly impressed when the first boy came in for the 10km at just under 35 minutes. Back in school I couldn't even run the whole 4km, let alone 10km, lol. Interestingly, most of the kids came in at under an hour. Pretty good! After a brief closing ceremony, it was all over and the kids rushed off home. So now the school is sadly empty and I'm sitting in the staffroom writing this. As there are no students, there are no classes, so most teachers are either taking nenkyu or sleeping at their desks. So I figure, I may as well go and read my photography book in the library. If there's nothing else to do, I should at least do something useful with my spare time! Tonight is packing for the trip tomorrow and an early night, I think, as I have to be up by 6ish. I don't think I'll be able to update in Hokkaido, so I'll put something up when I get back next week. Yatta! Have a good weekend, everyone.