This was the parkrun that escaped me on my last trip to Japan, as we were staying nearby, but we were flying to Hong Kong on the Saturday and the timings of the bus to the airport didn’t really work (and I had a bad cold which meant the 2.5km each way from the station to the parkrun would have been too much). So, this trip I was keen to head there.
This parkrun is very close to Tokyo Disneyland (only a few more stops on the train) but at this point of the trip we were staying in the centre of Tokyo, so my journey was quite a bit longer than it would have been if I were travelling from the hotels in the vicinity of Disney. I had to get 3 trains and then either a bus or a 2.5km walk from the final train station, so it was an early start (5:30am- thankfully the jet lag worked a bit in favour of this) in order to get all the connections to line up. Ideally I wanted to be at the station near parkrun (Shin-Urayasu Station- on the Keiyo line) at about 7 to give me time to walk there as I had not got a bus before, and the walk was a straight line so very simple. I slept so badly as I was having all sorts of worries about missing train connections and getting lost, but thankfully my journey went fine (in that I got there in the end) but even finding tracks at the first station (that was literally right next to our hotel) was challenging as the line I needed turned out to be in the Basement-2 level and accessed by one lift going down to B1, walking a bit and then finding a way down to B2. Google maps is your friend when navigating trains in Tokyo, and it does leave time for transfers as it knows how far apart the platforms can be, but any sort of error and backtracking can mean you miss a connection. I had purposely gone this way rather than a two train option that went through Tokyo station (the Keiyo line to Disney goes from there, however it’s such a long walk through the station (at least 15 mins) to the tracks that I wanted to avoid that as I thought I probably knew the way but if I got lost in a huge station like that I would probably miss parkrun).
(If anyone is interested I went Shiodome station – Tsukishima on the Oedo line, then Tsukishima to Shin-Kiba on the Yurakucho line, then Shin-Kiba to Shin-Urayasu on the Keiyo line, and got briefly lost in one of the stations where I had to change, but had left enough time to still be OK to walk. The good thing about the Tokyo metro is that on each line, each station had a number (so the Oedo line are all E, so I went from E19 to E16, and then Y21 to Y24, and then JE05 to JE08)- the platforms and maps are all clearly labelled, even with arrows showing which station and direction is next, so it is very clear once you are at the platform that you are going the right way. I got a little confused at the final platform as that line shared a platform with another line, but I worked that out too).
It was a warm morning, so I pretty much walked the whole way there. I’d taken water +electrolytes with me, and a tshirt to change into for the journey back. They post a bit on social media, generally posting photos after the event, and there were previous posts about a cancelation due to a typhoon, and posts about the meeting point changing, so I was pretty sure it was going ahead, however I was still relieved to see the parkrun flag at the end of the road.
The course is right by the water, so this was the view from the end of the street right by the meeting point- pretty impressive.
The view from the end of the road, right by the starting location
After taking some pictures I headed into the park to the meeting spot.
As has always been the case at parkruns in Japan, the team were incredibly friendly to the visitors. As soon as I walked over I was shown the course map and had it explained to me (basically out along the coast in one direction, turn at the u-turn sign, back along the coast past the start area until you reach a marshal, up a little hill and back towards the finish). I am sure they always get people from other countries due to their proximity to Disney (and Tokyo station)- there were some tourists from Denmark and Australia as well as the UK. A lovely UK tourist came to chat to me (she guessed I was a tourist as I had my 250 shirt on) and we were all asked to have a first timers photo and then they took a photo of all the participants.
The briefing was done in Japanese and English, in that the RD would say something in Japanese, and then another volunteer would say that in English, alternating all the way through. As it was very hot, they really emphasised the need to run gently, be aware of the heat, and keep hydrated (even telling us that it takes around 30 mins for water to be absorbed so they hoped we had hydrated in our hotels before coming here).
Views from the run- bottom right is the marshal at the final turnaround point before you go up the hill
And then we were off. At times there was a lovely breeze from the sea, but not much shade so I was careful to run gently. You run next to the sea wall, so you had views out to sea and across the bay. Jo (the tourist from Sheffield) ran with me and we had a lovely chat which definitely helped to keep me going. She was so enthusiastic about running in general and was cheering on all the runners but giving big “girl power” cheers to the women who were passing us in the opposite direction.
More views from the run and the u-turn cone
Once we turned the breeze stopped and it became really hard work. I just tried to focus on looking at the views and keeping a steady pace.
The participants were quite spread out (there were only 50 according to the results), with lots of other runners out not doing parkrun, and mostly the course was very simple as you were by the sea. After the u-turn section and passing near the start/finish, there were suddenly loads of groups of runners setting off, and I did wonder if I would go wrong. However they had a marshal at the bottom of the little slope, and I could see them in the distance so I knew I was going the right way. The slope was steeper than I expected, but in the shade so that was a welcome relief.
The course:
As you can see it was very simple and pretty much by the sea the whole time.
Briefing/ some of the shaded route/ the scanner set up/ table with water and snacks/ blurry token
As I ran towards the finish the volunteers directed me in- I think I was heading past it to the flags as I didn’t notice the cones set up in a funnel shape!
I loved their finish area set up- they had a little stand that the scanner had put their phone in (and at times this was just left there- Japan is such a trusting society- people leave their phones on tables in cafes to indicate that they are using the table) so you could hold up your barcode and then token in front. They also had a table with cups of water and various snacks that they were offering to everyone as well. I made sure to have the rest of my drink and cool off in the shade a little before doing anything else.
Photos with the course signs
They don’t have pop up signs in Japan (I think more people use public transport or bikes so they can’t have loads of kit), instead they have these roll out signs, so I had my photo and I got one with Jo as well. Jo had got the bus from the station here, so said she would show me how it worked (it was very simple but I was so stressed on the way there that the bus would have been one too many things to work out)- this was good as I knew we’d be doing a lot of sightseeing for the rest of the day so it was good to rest on the bus rather than walk another 2.5km.
I popped into the toilets by the park to change into my top (and saw how red my face still was- it still alarms me) and then we caught a bus back to the station (although this did not turn out to be quicker than walking as it didn’t go the direct route but went weaving through lots of side streets). It was a good decision though as in the end I did 37,500 steps so at least I saved some energy for sightseeing!
Finish area with cones and flags/ red face even half an hour after finishing/ vending machine rehydration
I was still so thirsty so picked up a rehydration drink from a platform vending machine to have before getting back to the hotel. I got back to the station by our hotel at 10am, and didn’t get to the hotel until 10:15 as it took me that long to work out how to get back out of the station…
Voronoi update:
3 parkruns in Tokyo visited now-and it’s making a very pretty sort of windmill shape!
That was my 459th parkrun and my 161st location, and my 4th in Japan
Up next? Well, I was hoping for a second parkrun in Japan on this trip, and I managed it, so that will be coming up shortly too.
