Travel | Long Week in Japan

To Tokyo and Beyond…

Posted on August 13, 2016 by longweekinjapan

…which feels not a million miles from infinity! A pretty crazy city and somewhere I’d like to spend some time without this impending sense of doom!

The whole crew is now together, complete with our home for the week…the ‘Flemish Sport’ possibly very aptly named as I may well be channeling my in Belgian classics rider for large parts of the week.

Having spent last night in a capsule hotel, with its many quirks.

We picked and chose ours. Checked our shoes at reception, changed into the standard issue PJs, sat in the saloon room with all the other men wearing the same PJs, (most of them smoking heavily) watched what seemed like a Japanese sit com about a young female chef and used the bar code on our wrist band to get a beer (Terry) and an ice cream (me) out of the vending machines (genius!). It seems the aim is that you leave all your worldly possessions behind and emerse yourself in the faceless uniformity of the place for a night. We did however forego the naked public baths and traditional Japanese toilets…2 options were presented in this field…this…

A sort of French long drop type affair. Or this…

Which is somewhere between toilet and space ship. Terry and I opted for the latter…simultaneously…a fiddle with the buttons later and the pair of us were sat in side by side cubicles in fits of laughter…I shan’t expand and can only imagine what the more familiar patrons must have thought.

I digress! On a more somber note, today was the 2nd anniversary of Stef’s death. A funny kind of a day, one I have no real desire to mark but feel I somehow should. It is a reminder of why I’m here and an opportunity to remember what a bloody legend he was (most of the time). The stark reality of the ride is also hitting home. On the plus side, despite is being the height of summer it gets dark much earlier than I’d expected here and the weather is forecast to be miserable all week, capital stuff! On the actual plus side, they found the brand new, really expensive headphones I left on the flight out here so I can collect them in time for the journey home…clouds and silver linings ‘ey!

As I write we are coming into Okaya, it’s close to midnight and tonight is the first night in the van. It’s all very real now!

Again thank you all for your incredible support. Please continue to share and help raise money! I’ll endeavour to keep you updated on the road and sorry for the earlier toilet chat!

Here Goes Nothing…

Posted on August 11, 2016 by longweekinjapan

A solid airport breakfast on the most appropriate table I could find!! 1 hour until my flight, the calm before the storm (after the storm of hauling a bike box scores London at rush hour).

I’ve had a sec to reflect back on the 2 years that have lead to this point. I’ve got to say, it’s difficult to put into words how I feel. Getting here has been a roller coaster. I have questioned whether this was even possible, whether I was capable of it and whether it would just end up being me, going on a bike ride that no-one else cared about! You guys have made it so much more than that.

Thanks your overwhelming support I can now say I think I’ve achieved something (OK I’ve not started riding yet but I’ll get to that!) I think this might actually be a success, whatever that means? I’m 70% of the way to my (ambitious and entirely arbitrary) £10000 target, with messages of support and ridiculously generous donations from people I’ve not spoken to in years who have no responsibility to be so kind. Words like inspirational and motivational fail to capture the magnitude of my emotion, cliches like ‘your support helps me keep going’ are somehow, inadequate.

To put the above into context, Charlie recent recovered from treatment for breast cancer, then for skin cancer. She has built her own business over the past year and posted this message accompanied by a healthy donation, the day after winning gold at the national gymnastics championships. And I’m ‘crazy and inspirational’…whatever you say!

A video I posted last week hit 8000 views on line, in it I mentioned the recent breakthroughs in MND research funded my the Ice Bucket Challenege. That was a timely reminder that this isn’t just about remembering stef, it’s not just about me have an awesome time (I can’t emphasise how much fun this is going to be for me, maybe I am crazy) but actually that the work that these charities do drives progress that changes lives. Me riding a bike means nothing without your generosity, this whole premise relies entirely on it and you’ve come good! So if you don’t mind I’m going to head off on the holiday of a life time and if you could all stay at home and keep making this something really special that’d be sweet!!!

That’s stefs dad Jan, we’re about to take off, I should put my phone away.

The Story So Far…

Posted on April 22, 2016 by longweekinjapan

A lot has happened and the old ‘Here’s the Plan’ page is kinda out dated so I thought I’d consolidate some stuff. The avid followers among you (Mum, Dad, Jan and Wendy) will no doubt spot that there has been some copy and pasted here!
To give some background, Long Week is Japan is my homage to Stef, an old friend and an amazing person who does if Motor Neurone Disease in August 2014, and his mother who died of the same condition when we were 16.
On July 5th 2011 he sent me this message…

The news was earth shattering. Me and the guys mentioned in this message spent the next 3 years doing everything we could to support Stef.

On July 21st 2014, as the ice bucket challenge craze that stormed social media and raised millions for the very disease Stef suffered with, I got this message from his sister Chiori…

That was undoubtably the bravest decision I have ever know any man make, and it gave me the opportunity to say goodbye to a dear friend, a dear friend who, until then had been staunchly guarded about his own mortality. Part of what we discussed was me doing something to commemorate Stef. To give him a legacy and raise money for the charities fighting the disease he, and his mother died of, #longweekinjapan is that legacy.

Initially the plan was to cycle from Stef’s mother’s home town of Okaya, Japan, to Lake Toya to complete Ironaman Japan…unfortunately that event got cancelled! After much deliberation and having explored some options I realised, ironman or not, this pretty sweet lake is still there, a long way from Okaya with some pretty awesome road along the way!

So I made a new plan…on the 11th of August, pretty much 2 years exactly since Stef’s death, I’m going to fly to Japan (we’ve actually booked flights!!). Following a couple of days of admin and acclimatisation (faffing), on Monday 15th August I’m going to start my adventure and over the next 5 days, cycle a total of about 1500km taking in some incredible natural and man made land marks on my way from Okaya to Lake Toya. Once I’m there I’m going to chill my beans for a day, then have a bit of a swim (distance and legality to be confirmed!) and run the 46kms of of the lakes shoreline. A bit more detail on the plan can be found here. The whole challenge is still planned for 7 days, so it’s still a Long Week in Japan, just a different one to what I initially had planned!

All the while I’ve been training, I managed 3 marathons last year and I’ve been hitting the bike pretty hard. I’m yet to hit the water…in fact it’s been half a decade since I last did any meaningful swimming, but I’m getting to that (update…this weekend I actually got in a pool)!

So there, that’s kind of that! I’m gunna make this a new sticky post up at the top to give a good over view so if this is your first time here, keep scrolling there’s more down there!!

Cheers for reading and follow along for sporadic, poorly punctuated updates on my progress and follow @longweekinjapan on Twitter and Instagram!

#longweekinjapan

Change of Plan

Posted on December 26, 2015 by longweekinjapan

Classic Boxing Day cinema trip to see Stars Wars : The Force Awakens. Always good to see some storm troopers cop it after what they did to my boy a while back!

On Boxing Day 2014 I went for a (slow and miserable) 10k run. That was the start of training for the Barcelona marathon, and so I guess for Long Week in Japan. Today, in memory I suppose, I hit the treadmill for some HIIT courtesy of Wes at Lomax and reflection on a year gone by was useful distraction from the pain!

One year on, 1500km of running and 6000km on the bike, 3 marathons, l’etape du tour, winning the south west 3 peaks yacht race and a good few hours in the gym and spin studio at Lomax and I’m pretty proud of my 2015. My running has really come on. Going from not really being a runner to doing 2 marathons in 4 weeks both about 3 hrs 50 and then taking that PB down to 3:34 in Dublin bodes well for Japan (how I looked crossing the line however, does not!)

In fact, training in general has been the easy part, not that other parts have been difficult I guess, but not gone as well as I’d hoped.

I’ve spoken before about how my ambitions for this project having quite been achieved, I guess I’d hoped/assumed others would be as into it as I would but getting people on board and promo done has been tough/not really happened!! To try and over come this I think I have to push harder over the coming months if I want to achieve my target of raising £10000 (punchy I know!). That said I have raised about £1000 without really pushing, largely thanks to the incredible generosity of those who have contributed, so thanks all of you.

I’m very aware that the hard work is pretty much all still ahead of me. From a training point of view I want to get faster, on foot and on the bike. I want to go sub 3:30 at least in another marathon, likely early in the year, and still want to get inside the top 1000 at l’etape, though knowing what I have planned for that this year means that probably won’t be achieved in 2016! More importantly…I need to get swimming! The last time I did anything meaningful in a pool was 2009/10 after my ankle surgery so getting up to 4km could be quite an ask!
Outside of training I need to push fundraising. The fact is I enjoy training and am massively looking forward to this as an adventure. To make it something meaningful I need to raise money and awareness and I’ve not got loads of time to do it.

Which brings me to what is probably the most important part of this blog…Here’s the plan part 2.0! Essentially there had been a big delay in confirming the date of Ironman Japan and so opening the entries. I got in touch with ironman and initially they told me it was on its way. Then, coming into the holiday season they emailed to say the event had been cancelled…which sucks!

Obviously that’s a bitter blow! The whole plan looked so sexy on paper! The timing of it, the numbers all added up and it included a huge life goal for me in an ironman. It’s also the last thing I ever spoke to Stef about, the last messages I sent him, via his sister Chiori was outlining this challenge and there’s a large part of me that hates the fact I can’t do it. Well, not this year at least, I still hope the opportunity will come round again.

Fear not though, I will be doing something, and there are a few options. There is another iron-distance triathlon in Japan at a similar time of year or a 7 day 250km unsupported ultra-marathon. Either of these can be integrated into similarly ridiculous challenges to the original plan, or I might find something else. It’s unlikely to be as perfect as the original but as long as I can get out there and hurt myself in inventive ways in Stef’s name, and raise money and awareness for MND while I’m at it then it will be worthwhile. The search has thrown up some interesting contacts already so hopefully it’ll clouds with silver linings!

That’s all from me, I’m going to enjoy Wallace and Gromit’s “The Wrong Trousers” with the remaining conscious members of my family on the sofa!!

Watch this space for updates on the new and, hopefully, improved Long Week in Japan event!

Merry Christmas and happy new year, here’s to more progress in 2016!!

#longweekinjapan