Japanese Surgeon's Daily Life

Dog Run

　　I continue to do regular jogging once or twice a week. Today, I found two dog runs under construction in the nearby park. When I had a dog several years ago, it was prohibited to take dogs in the park and I sometimes asked the municipal office to lift the ban, but in vain. I have written about this issue before (link). I stopped here on my jogging route and recalled my two departed dogs. I had wanted them to run as long as they wanted to.

Mileage Accumulated

　　My wife and I put everything on our credit cards if they can be used. As you might notice, we are accumulating frequent flier points of a Japanese airline company, All Nippon Airways (ANA), by using the cards even for daily purchases. My daughter and I made a trip to Germany and Italy last autumn by ANA and Lufthansa, which is a member of the Star Alliance along with ANA and this trip brought in lots of mileage points. It attained the equivalent of four domestic flights' tickets.
　　I'll have a week off in March. I was wondering where to visit this March seeing a map of the whole of Japan, and a small island in Tokyo caught my eye. Needless to add, Tokyo is the capital of Japan, but it has several islands in its executive area. The name of the island that attracted me is Hachijojima, which is located far south of Tokyo and is well-known as an island of transportation since 16th century.
　　Hachijojima island is a volcanic island in the subtropical area. Though it is so small and isolated in the south of Japan, it had appeared in Japan's history by 16th century at the latest. It has vast cultural and natural resources, and it's also noted as the place for scuba diving, fishing and observing land features made by the volcanic activities.

(Vocabulary)
put sth on your credit card ＜商品＞をクレジットカードで買う
transportation  (old use) the punishment of sending a criminal to a distant country
by __ at the latest 遅くとも＿年までに

Result of Ehime Marathon

　　The Ehime Marathon was scheduled to start at 10:00 hours and runners were required to align in the designated block S for the highly qualified and from A to G depending on the prospective finish time. My block was D, which meant my finish time would be from 4 hours and 30 minutes to 5 hours.
　　Every year, a few celebrities are invited to warm up the event. When the runners were about to start, they were cheering up at the starting point. As I saw them, I hit upon a good idea to chat with them. It was to finish in the latter half of 5 hours and 59 minutes. It would make a big scene and be shown on local TV.
　　As I wrote in the previous entries, local companies as well as local people offered runners their products like sweets, fruits, sponges containing water and so on. I adjusted my time chatting with them just like tea time. I thought it was a nice idea, but I got more exhausted than I expected after the 38km mark. I could scrape by the 8th control gate but was stopped continuing running at the 9th, the last control gate of 40.5km. My result was DNF, but I really enjoyed the marathon. I'm going to run other marathons not only across Japan but overseas ones. I'll post all the account below.

Distance  　　Split Time 　　 Lap Time      Time
10Km   　　　  01:27:02 　　　　　　         11:27:02
15Km     　　　02:07:41　　　  0:40:39 　  12:07:41
20Km     　　　02:48:19  　　　0:40:38   　12:48:19
25Km     　　　03:30:02  　　　0:41:43   　13:30:02
30Km     　　　04:14:29  　　　0:44:27   　14:14:29
35Km     　　　04:58:35  　　　0:44:06   　14:58:35
40Km     　　　05:45:06  　　　0:46:31  　 15:45:06

(Vocabulary)
warm sb ↔ up (前座で) ＜観客・聴衆＞をリラックスさせる［盛り上げる］
cheer sb ↔ up ＜人＞を元気づける, 活気づける
scrape by ぎりぎりで生活していく= get by; (試験などを) ぎりぎりで突破する, かろうじて要件を満たす
control gate  関門
stop sb doing sth ＜人＞が＜…＞するのをやめさせる
She tried to stop the child crying. 彼女は子供を泣泣きやませようとした．

(Vocabulary from comments)
bonk  from Wiki
In endurance sports such as cycling and running, hitting the wall or the bonk describes a condition caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles, which manifests itself by sudden fatigue and loss of energy. Milder instances can be remedied by brief rest and the ingestion of food or drinks containing carbohydrates. The condition can usually be avoided by ensuring that glycogen levels are high when the exercise begins, maintaining glucose levels during exercise by eating or drinking carbohydrate-rich substances, or by reducing exercise intensity.
elated
extremely happy and excited, especially because of something that has happened or is going to happen:
He felt elated and mildly drunk.
[+at/by] She was elated at the prospect of a holiday.

Ehime Marathon Eve

　　This is the Ehime Marathon Eve and I recalled the days over the course of the past year. When I was seeing the scene of the finish of the Ehime Marathon last year tomorrow, I made up my mind to join next year's marathon. It was lots of runners' beaming smiles to give me a push to take up jogging. I've trained myself to run longer by expanding the running distance from 2 to 3 km to 40km bit by bit.
　　It has turned 9 o'clock. I'll wake up at 5 o'clock tomorrow. Better be going to bed. One of the pictures shows the marathon suit that I'll wear tomorrow!

(Vocabulary)
beam にっこりほほえむ, (喜びなどで) 顔を輝かす
beam at sb/sth ＜…＞に向かってにっこりほほえむ
beam with pride/pleasure/excitement  得意そうに［喜びに，興奮で］顔が輝く
Connie beamed with pride as her name was read out. 自分の名前が読み上げられるとコニーは得意満面だった．

A Few More Days

　　In the days leading up to the Ehime Marathon, I'm taking care of myself not to catch a cold with some kinds of Japanese herbal medicine. I've trained to complete the marathon for the past year. I don't want to give up through trivial things such as a cold. Nearly 9,000 runners are supposed to join the marathon, which might be called a local festival. Lots of sponsor companies offer their product or funds. Various kinds of oranges, which are one of the best specialties in Ehime, buns, bananas, strawberries, tomatoes and other food supplies will be placed along the route for runners. Additionally, I'm going to take some special meals designed for effective calorie-supply, which are shown below.

(Vocabulary)
lead up to sth 〈期間が〉 ＜…＞の直前に迫る
trivial 　些細(ささい)な
a trivial matter 取るに足りない問題
a trivial sum of money 雀の涙ほどの金額
bun [C] バンズ (小さな丸形のパン)

Young Soccer Players

　　It was cold today too. About noon, I went to Matsuyama Central Park where the primary school kids soccer tournament Matsuyama Chuo Lions Club Cup is being held yesterday and today. It was one of the activities of my Lions
Club. The Club has hosted this soccer meeting for several years.
　　The popularity of soccer has soared in recent years and lots of kids have come to dream of being professional soccer players. I'm not interested in soccer so much, but it was enjoyable watching the kids play the game seriously and vigorously.
　　Ehime Prefecture, home to me, will host the National Athletic Meeting of Japan in 2017, and at that time, some of the kids who were running around the ground will be selected as representatives of Ehime Prefecture. I hope to see them participate when they are grown-up.

Imported Car Exhibition

　　My family has three cars. One is a 4-wheel drive that accommodates 8 people. It has been used mainly for family vacations for 13 years. It can take lots of luggage like skiing, climbing, fishing and camping gear along with all family members. Another is a small one with a 550cc displacement, which has been used for shopping nearby or commuting for 15 years. The last one is for my youngest daughter to use for commuting.
　　Two of my daughters are in Tokyo and Nagoya now and the youngest will leave home in two years time. I started to consider about our cars. I won't need the bigger one. If needed temporarily, I could rent an ideal one for use then. I'm wondering about two-seater vehicles, both from domestic and foreign companies.
　　The Imported Car Exhibition was held today in Ehime World Trade Center, which is located at a distance of 5km from my house. I was interested in several affordable cars from lots of cars exhibited there. There were so many cars priced over 100,000 US$ but these were regrettably out of my reach. The cars that I had an itch for were the Porsche Boxster, Mercedes SLK 200 and Audi TT. These are two-seater convertibles.
　　I'll look into the functional aspects of the above and other several cars for the next two years.

(Vocabulary)
displacement 　[U](エンジンの) 排気量
in ~ years time 　～年後に
have an itch  食指が動く

A Week To Ehime Marathon

　　On Feb. 1st, Saturday, one week before Ehime Marathon, I joined the volunteer work of cleaning the route of the marathon. The Amino-Value Running Club, which I belong to and is one of the biggest clubs in Japan, took part in the road cleanup with other running clubs, company groups and university students. The weather was clear and just like early spring though the northern part of Japan was in the midst of heavy coldness. I was getting excited to imagine that I would run there a week later cheered on by lots of people.
　　One more thing: Ehime Marathon topped the popularity vote across the country last year. It is said that Shikoku, in which Ehime is included, is rich in O-MO-TE-NA-SHI mind. This Japanese word was introduced in the final presentation for hosting 2020 Olympics in Tokyo at the IOC general meeting held in Brazil last year.
　　Anyway, I'll run the first full marathon next Sunday!

Omotenashi in French：　http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j60fhcJzoRw