So before I recall our adventures on Iheya Island, I thought maybe I should tell you how this all came together. You will remember, dear reader, I told you that in February my name had been drawn for the Canyon de Chelly marathon and that Marchelo’s had not. This left us with a bit of a problem since Marchelo and I like to train for races together. I figured that we should look into finding another race that was scheduled for around a similar time as the Ultra. That way if Marchelo didn’t get in, he could still have all that training pay off. All of this was going on as we were preparing for our spring marathon on Catalina Island in March. We had such a good race! Everything went really well, and in addition to enjoying the beautiful course, at the end we each received a beautiful ceramic finisher's medal. Since we had also received ceramic medals for the Big Sur marathon the year before, I thought to myself that we should look for more races that offered ceramic bling so as to make a collection. In my search for ceramic medals I came across the Iheya Island Moonlight Marathon: a fall marathon in Okinawa. Perfect. It seemed like the right catalyst to finally visit my sister in the Ryuku islands. True, the race was scheduled for a week after the Canyon de Chelly Ultra, but I figured we would cross that bridge when we get there. A few months later I was using google translate to figure out how to sign up for our very first international marathon around a tiny island in the South Pacific.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: running an ultra marathon, then flying across the world to run another marathon? You guys are crazy. Well, yes and no. Yes, sure, I accept it’s a crazy thing. On the other hand, when you are training at the distances we do, it really didn’t seem too far beyond the realm of possibility. And besides, there was no guarantee Marchelo would even be able to run the Ultra, in which case he could do the full moonlight marathon and I could always drop down to the half distance. And so it was with this plan in mind that we made the commitment to participate in both events and to see where the winds would take us. So we signed up, got our plane tickets, and made our convoluted itinerary for this grand adventure to run both the south west and the Far East.
As you know now, we were both able to run and finish the Canyon de Chelly Ultra, which for me personally was my ‘big’ event (I am still wearing my finishers necklace) but Iheya would be a fun, one of a kind cultural experience that was too good to pass up.
The island of Iheya is very small but has been welcoming runners for this annual event for the past 24 years. They have a running man symbol prominently displayed on their ferry boats and in town, and it is an event that the whole town participates in. This year roughly 1700 people showed up, which far exceeds the island's ability to host everyone in the few hotels they have, so many people camp or sleep in the local gymnasium. Kate booked us at a campsite where all the tents are set up for you ahead of time so that we could enjoy the island life without having to bring too much camping stuff. Friday morning we left Kate and Jon’s house in Yomitan and made our way through the hills of northern Okinawa, stopping to see Kate’s library and enjoy some delicious soba before arriving at the ferry terminal. My little pocket WiFi unit was not prepared to be this far away from mainland japan, and so internet was inconsistent, but that’s OK, I was happy to embrace the island life and allowing ourselves to unplug.
The ferry ride over took a little over an hour and soon we were pulling up into the harbor.
In anticipation of the runners we were greeted at the dock and the race check in was very well marked with arrows with many locals in ‘staff’ shirts directing us to packet pickup. The Japanese, as a culture, are so well organized. I didn’t need to speak the language to find our line, get our gear, and make our way to the free shuttle that would take us to the campsite. It was at this moment when I could have tried to downgrade to the half marathon, but despite the long travel I was feeling fresh and ready to try the full distance. Marchelo agreed. So we got our racing bibs, shirts, complementary towels, and bag, and made our way to camp.
I think Kate said it best when she exclaimed “It’s like the Quidditch cup!” And she was right. Seeing all those tents neatly in a row in preparation for the event was very cool and very Japanese. We rented a grill that came with a flat iron cooking surface, as opposed to grill slots, and Jon made us delicious yaki soba noodles. Sugoi! It was delicious.
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