Training #10 Our Team's 100k Dry Run

April 18, 2009

We completed our dry run (93km) in 30 hours. We did have two long breaks but it's worth it. A break at 2 a.m. really gave us some extra energy and learned not to sleep within any covers right after the long walk. On Sat. we did really well. we arrived at CP4 almost 2 hours earlier than planned. But that's when things were turned around. We asked our support team to join us at 6.30 p.m. but we were too early and our support team is very punctual. So we have to wait for them as they carried our clothes for the night hike. As you can guess, it's difficult to get up after we sat down to rest after 8 straight hours walking close to 40 km. So we took our time, ended up close to 3 hours break. Then, we continued to CP5 climbing mountain in the dark. Our Raj wanted to bring fun to the team by suggesting that we talked about scary stuff. Not when I'm the last person in line. So I told him that as long as he stays at the end of the group, I wouldn't mind any scary stories. The trick worked. No scary stories were told on the trail in the dark. We started playing music instead. It was good until we hit midnight and made a couple of wrong turns. Raj and Yukiko were so sleepy that they just dropped themselves on the roadside trying to sleep. Luckily, they listened to me and moved a bit to stay under small shade from the building but that's not enough. 30 mins after we stopped, the coldness from the night hit us real fast. An hour after, Yukiko gave up. I wanted to give up earlier but as a team leader, I can't change my word. I gave my team 2 hours resting time so I waited for someone to give up first. thanks, Yukiko. Then, we just realized that Raj quietly sneaked to sleep in the car without telling us. We only have one extra space in the car and Raj took it. Anyway, our support crews offered us earlier but we didn't feel like taking spaces away from them. Now since we are cold, we don't care. We kicked support crews, Rico and Jan, out of the car and Yukiko and I took their spaces and tried to sleep a bit. Not working for me. 4.30 a.m., finally we are slowly getting ready for the next round. We left around 5 a.m. from CP6 and arrived at CP7 around 9.30 a.m. It was hard for me as I was falling asleep at a second I stopped walking. If you ever walk with me, you will know how much I can keep talking while hiking. I became so quiet since last night (too thirsty to talk from drinking too much energy drink) and in early morning from sleep deprive. My teammates were worried about me and kept asking if I'm still with them. 8 a.m. my internal clock woke me up and I'm ready for the day. It was a very hot day on Sunday. After we arrived at CP7, we all went to change our clothes for day time. I really need shower. But we moved on. CP7 to CP8 is real challenging. A lot of steep climb after an hour walk on up slope gravel (more like road covered with giant gravel) road really drained out our energy. After gravel road is steep hills after hills. Yukiko kept asking if we reached the top and Raj did a good job in turning her down. Finally we were up on the Mt. Yubune. That's it. We decided we had enough and enough to proof that we can do it. We called our support team that we will end our hike at CP8. Come and pick us up and please take us to onsen. We had great time in onsen before hopping on the bus back to Shinjuku. We all slept like babies until we reached Shinjuku close to 3 hours after. At least we did it.

Training #11 CP7-9

April 26, 2009

This is our training #11. Yukiko and I went for the first wave and Jenny and Raza for the second wave. Raj can't make it but he was the one who did complete the whole trail earlier so at least he knew what to expect. T.Y. led OCJ members for the same trail and donated his organizer fees to the team. Thanks, T.Y.

We started our hike around 9.30 a.m. Yukiko and I went out without waiting for T.Y.'s team and learned a good lesson. Don't talk too much. We were so confident that we remembered all the trail so we went without checking the map. We missed the spot where we need to get on the trail. Why?? I guess people at Suruga Oyama are very nice. There were usually 2 similar sign posts and we learned from our prior trainings that we should get on the trail at the second sign post. The thing is the first sign post was removed and we didn't bother to check if the sign post we passed look exactly like in the photo map. And since we left our support team behind, they didn't have a chance to tell us that the sign post looks exactly like in the picture map. That's ok. We walked back and up on the trail.

CP7 is always a challenge but Yukiko and I did well and again left others behind. It was cold when we stoped so we kept going. At the peak of Mt. Yubune, we had lunch and waited for others to catch up with us. Once they arrived, they told us that they will modify their course and we will meet them at Panorama dai. So we left to CP8 and CP9 (finish line).

This is the first for Yukiko and me to conquer CP8 to CP9, the last 7 kms. It is tough with two peaks at the end but we did it. We met other Oxfam teams along the way. At one point, we made a wrong turn downhills as the map gave us incorrect instruction in English. Luckily, Yukiko didn't trust the translation and she checked the Japanese version after we ran downhills for 5-10 mins. It took us a big to climb back up.

On the way down to Panorama Dai, the wind picked up. I thought that I will be blown away so I told Yukiko that I won't wait for her. We just ran as fast as we can downhills. At Panarama Dai, we caught up with T.Y. and the gang and walked to Lake Yamanaka bus station together and headed back to Tokyo 3 hours later.

CP8 the end

arrived CP8@14.05
April 19
completed 93kms in approx 30 hrs. keep the rest for next time. Pei

CP7

After a few hours break (tossed and turned during cold night), we decided to continue our hike to CP7, left CP6@ 5.30 a.m. and arrived CP7@9.16
April 19
20km. to go
Pei

CP6

arrived CP6@2.24
April 19 Pei

CP5

arrived CP5@23.43
April 18 half way Pei

CP4

arrived CP4@17.10
April 18
Pei

CP3

arrived CP3@14.36
April 18
Pei

CP2

arrived CP2@13.23
April 18

lunch @ CP1-2

15min on top of Sengenyama 804m

CP1

arrived CP1@10.42
April 18

START

started from
CP0@8.47am
April 18

It's Party Time, May 8 at Sam & Dave Akasaka 7 p.m. to Midnight

It's boring if we just train. So now it's fun time.

Host: Team 123 (Pei, Jenny, Yukiko, Raj) and Support Crews
Type: Party - Bar Night
Start Time: Friday, May 8, 2009 at 7:00pm
End Time: Friday, May 8, 2009 at midnight (before a coach turns into a pumpkin)
Location: Sam & Dave Akasaka (www.samanddave.jp)
City/Town: Hitotsugi LIP B1 4-3-6, Akasaka, Japan

Cover charge is 1,500 yen per person which includes one free drink :)

This party will help our team raise funds for Oxfam's international development projects. We'll have raffles for some items and other fun stuff. Feel free to bring a lot of your friends.

See you there.

Our Team's T-shirt

Finally, we placed an order for our team T-shirts. Here is the design (after several emails/phone calls in broken Japanese). Quick dry T in Royal Blue with logo and team's name in Lavender. We will get this beautiful (according to the picture) T on April 20.

CP 7-9: Perfect weather for hiking on the toughest part of the Trail

We couldn't really have asked for better weather on our hike this weekend. Not a single cloud covered the sun and what this meant was we got to see Mount Fuji in all its glory at different parts of the trail. CP7 to CP9 truly exemplifies the saying 'No Pain, No Gain', for I think when the stars align just right, it is the most beautiful part of the trail and at the same time deceivingly difficult. But more on that later...

So no Pei, no Jenny and no Yukiko this weekend. Just when I was mentally prepared to sing Karaoke into the wee hours of the Friday night, TY, one of our support crew, sends out an email that he'd like to hike. Feeling guilty as I had done only 2 hikes before, of course I crush all my partying dreams and say that I will come along. Xia, another one of our support crew, jumps in saying that she is interested. Unfortunately TY falls ill right before the day and Xia and I decide to persevere on. When I asked her that day why she still decided to go, she said, "What's our team name again?!" :)

We had no difficulty getting to CP7. And guess who was there to greet us? Good old Fuji-san. Thats when it dawned on me what a beautiful day it was going to be. Xia and I had no difficulty finding our way from CP7-8. We chatted about everything under the sun. I told her about the differences between the different regions in India and she enlightened me on the fact that Canberra is the capital of Australia. Yah, I know you thought it was Sydney :) You should ask her the story of how those people down under choose Canberra. It is rather fascinating.

I'm making this sound like CP7-8 is a walk in the park, but it most definitely isnt. Theres an irritating gravel road in the beginning. Then there are all these confusing signs. When you actually start climbing Mount Furo you realize that the gravel road was ten times better. There are 3 to 4 areas where you go vertically up at an angle of 60-70 degrees. And every time you think you have reached the last one of them, another one shows up just to taunt you. Xia and I didnt say a word through most of the climb up because we were panting hard and concentrating on why we should be taking the next 2 steps. Sounds like fun doesn't it? :) 

Pei, we figured out where we went wrong the last time. It wasn't when Raza called. I know we love to blame Raza for everything but this is the only time that it wasn't his fault ;) When you get close to the top of Mount Furo there a sign that tells you to go down. Don't take it. Keep going up. You will come across another sign in 2-3 minutes. This area has an amazing view of Fuji and has benches to sit down. Thats the point from which you need to go down. Now you know!

Of course when you climb a mountain you goto go down and Xia and I loved going down. At one point we came across a patch of dry grass with another stunning view of Fuji. Of course it was picture time! We also came across a group of fellow Oxfam hikers. Some of their team members seemed to be much older than us and in much better health. 

It's amazing how people in their 40s and 50s can do something like this. I hope that when I am that old, which I will probably never be ;) , I will have the same urge to get out in the wild and hurt some muscle!

I have to talk about how strong and determined Xia can be. She came in thinking this was only going to be a 20km hike and as she had done about 30kms before, a piece of cake (by the way, I found out that she wants to be a baker of Cheesecakes and Cupcakes in the future!). She had only used her walking sticks once before. And she didnt even have hiking shoes. All this didn't prevent her from being chirpy during the entire trail. She didn't complain once and she was determined to keep climbing up even when the top seemed no where in sight. She had all the right qualities of a good hiker. A beaming smile and rock-hard determination!

So we reveled in little victories like climbing a hard stretch or catching a glimpse of Fuji. We ate lunch sitting on a tree trunk with a cool breeze caressing us. We reached CP 8 in good time. There was another stretch from CP8-9 that is a steep climb but it seemed much easier than the one before. We climbed Mt. Myojin and got a stunning view of Lake Yamanaka sprawled at the feet of Fuji. Of course what is the fun of a hike without getting a little lost. So of course we decided to do just that. We didnt find any of the last four or five signs on our way down. However it seems like all roads lead to the Hirano Bus Stop and we eventually arrived there in good time to catch the bus back. After a bit of anxiety due to not having tickets and the bus being full, Xia saved the day by speaking perfect Japanese and convincing the driver that we needed to find our way back to Shinjuku. 

We passed Fujikyu on our way back and I was really tempted to ride those crazy rollercoasters. Someday I will! So that was the end of a very nice hike. We had relatively little issues, burned some calories, built some muscle, sweated up a storm and I bothered Xia with too many questions about this thing they call 'Life' :)

Thanks to our supporters (so far)

I know I love to have choices and I guess others are the same. As such, I decided to give our supporters a lot of options to choose from. I believe this will help my team raise funds for Oxfam. Our options are donation to

1. Justgiving http://www.justgiving.com/123nboxfamjapan2009
2. Oxfam America https://secure.oxfamamerica.org/site/Donation2?idb=1498382872&df_id=1860&1860.donation=form1
3. Oxfam Hong Kong by email twinfo@oxfam.org.hk
4. Oxfam Japan by credit card https://oxfam.jp/forms/sponsor_teams_form.html
5. Oxfam Japan by wire transfer(see detail at http://www.trailwalker.jp/en/fundraising/sponsor_teams/
6. and the simplest way: give cash to us

Only Justgiving lists our donor's names. I would like others to see your support to our team and hope that will inspire more people to do the same. So I decided to create this list. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support. Every cents added gave us more energy to go on. Every name on the list helps us to push our limit. It's very difficult to hike up and down all day all night long. Several time I asked myself (and I'm sure we all did) why I'm doing this. Why don't I just give money? It's the challenge that got me at the beginning but not anymore. Now what kept me and my team going is that we'd like to show our appreciation to your support by completing the hike. And we don't want to just complete the hike but want to do it well in a reasonable amount of time together as a healthy, well bond group who will cross the line with smiling faces. I know I can keep going on and on. It will take me forever to express my feeling. I think you all feel our gratefulness. Let me stop here.

Here is the list of our kind and generous supporters (in order of donation date)

• Yuko Bivins
• Ting Wang
• Corinne
• Julie & Martin
• Henry
• Randy Anstine
• Karen & Mike Modena
• Takeo Watanabe
• Mariko Kimura
• Yuko Nagaoka
• Hillary Hansen
• Ron Genty
• Junko Noda
• Nana Tachiki
• Neng
• Ying
• Ah
• Orm
• Add
• Nin
• Alex Gironde
• Jessie Ortiz
• Renan Galang
• Berna Bagtas
• Ingking Galang
• Jenny's mom and dad
• Renan, Ing, Lanie
• Aunty Letty
• Pei's mom
• Kay & Jerome
• Pam & Kamol
• Uncle Ooy
• Uncle Auy
• Ploy
• Kek
• Piab
• Angela Kuo
• Philip Squires
• Melanie Galang
• Tom Brown
• Gary Schweitzer
• Cynthia Daz
• Anna Marie Dizon
• ...(reserved for all of you)
• ...(reserved for all of you)
• ...(reserved for all of you)

Let's show the world that we can do better than just a bare minimum.

Training #8 no snow but a snake CP5-9 46kms

April 4, 2009

Weekend for our team means training. This week our team planned to hike 46km from CP5-9. From Tokyo, Jenny, Raj and I took Shinkansen to Odawara, changed to Daiyusan Train to Daiyusan and then a bus to Saijoji.

We started our hike at 8.30 a.m. CP5-6 was not as boring as usual. This time we have Raj, our newest team member. So we filled in Raj with our team's strategies for fundraising and training plan while we walked. Time flew and we reached CP6 as planned (1 hrs. 32 mins instead of 1 hrs. 30 mins) but we made a rest room stop at the beginning of the hike without stopping our stop watch.

We have to keep checking our time as we had very tight schedule if we don't want to get stranded at Lake Yamanaka. Last bus is at 7.35 p.m. and we can't really start much earlier due to lack of bus to go to CP5. Based on our plan, we had an hour buffer if we stick with our hiking plan.

Without any breaks, we continued to CP7. Just an hour after CP6, we were hungry. Time for brunch. I forgot to tell you that since we started our training, our metabolism increased. We are hungry all the time. But don't worry. We didn't gain weight. Actually, we are slimmer. (Yeah, I love the by-product). We ate our brunch and enjoyed sakura and view for 15-20 mins before we continued. From there, we had to walk uphills to the first open area. I'm very happy that so far there was no incident. Then, Jenny screamed and jumped. I was about to ask her what's wrong. Then, I screamed and jumped. A live snake crawled on the road. We don't know if it's poisonous. I have to ask Oxfam. Think about what if there're snakes at night when we can't see that well. We will definitely walk around this area close to midnight at our current speed.

We did better for our second round from CP6 to CP7. It took us 3 hrs 55 mins. (plan 3.5 hrs.) for our brunch and my short (10-15 mins) stop at Suruga Oyama Info Center. People in Suruga Oyama town are very friendly to Oxfam participants. I stopped there to get some brochures for nearby hotels in case we need one during our dry run. They immediately made a few calls around to check for hotel availability and wanted to chat with us on our training. I don't have a heart to cut them short. When we were about to leave, a lady at the info center gave us bottled tea to all of us (just a gesture to encourage us). From there, we stopped another stop at a convenient store to buy drinks to refill our CamelBak/Platypus bags and continued to CP7. We had a quick lunch and left CP7 at 2 p.m. We were 30 mins later than plan.

From CP7, we walked uphills for several kilometers on gravel road. I tried to push everyone to walk a little bit faster to make up on our 30 mins lost time. It was tought to walk uphills on this surface and it was a very long walk. We started to show some signs of tiredness when we reached trail entrance. I learned this time that last training I made mistake here but that's because I didn't have picture map. There was similar sign post a few meters earlier. Not a big deal as both trails are connected. From there, we were still climbing up. There were several places that are very steep. Even that, we didn't take any breaks. We all kept going, going and going. Finally, we reached the top where we had to make a turn. Since I made wrong turn here last time, I knew what to look for. We still went up and down. We became so quiet.

Then, Raza called when we reached another downhill. We were so happy that finally we can use different leg muscle. Without checking the map, we made a right turn while I passed my phone to Jenny so she can talk to Raza. For your information, Jenny likes to carry dead phone when we go hiking. Next time I will remind her a day before to charge phone battery. After a few minutes fast speed downhills, I kind of have a second thought about the turn we made so I asked Raj and Jenny what the sign said. Both, without the map, confirmed that we did the right turn so I had no further questions.

We came down to the road like in the picture map. The problem is the sign in the picture map looks completely different. I forgot to mention that we walked in light rain before we reached the top. Besides, we are not sure if we go back to the junction where we got the call, we will go to the right way. I remembered from last time that I cut across the second electric pole and there's one around there so I told them to walk towards the electric pole and see if we will find any sign posts directing us to the right trail. The more we walk, the further away we were from the electric pole. We decided to walk back to where the road was and walked towards the Suruga Oyama station. I didn't want to go back because we will need to move much faster to make up lost time. Otherwise, it will cost us a fortune to hail a cab from Lake Yamanaka to Gotemba as we may miss the last bus back to Tokyo.

No pressure this time. We actually found a nice park along the way. It was a nice find. We took some pictures and headed back towards train station. We discussed whether we should stop at cafe that we ordered yakisoba last week and make it Omori (super size) this time. When we were close to town, I checked train schedule and found that we have 5 mins to catch the train. The next one is 45 mins after. We didn't want to wait so we ran like mad people to train station. After 9 hours and 15 mins, we ran and made it to the station, where it will take us 10 mins by walking.

I'm so proud of our team. We are still strong and have energy. Maybe I should use that trick when we walk on the event that we are about to miss the train/bus, we can sprint and cross the finish line in an impressive time.

Next one, we will make our 2nd attempt for 100k dry run. Hope the weather be on our side this time. Until then, please enjoy spring and sakura (for those who are in Tokyo now).

Who is this 'Raj' Character?

I like to think of myself as a mental hiker. In my head, I'm tarzan swinging from sakura to sakura (Japanese tarzan anyone?), at peace with mother nature, with legs the size of tree trunks. But the fact of the matter is that I just bought my hiking shoes about 4 weeks back, had gone for one difficult hike before this (without hiking shoes, haha!), and spend most of my Friday nights and Saturday mornings deep in the bowels of Roppongi. So sometimes I wonder why Pei and Jenny want me on their team. I guess the answer is that I am a 110% crazy. Just like them :)

Why am I doing this? I think knowing the answer to that is the most critical factor to finishing this gruelling exercise. The primary reason would be that I love challenges and achieving things that other people find impossible. And if putting myself through 100kms of hell is going to feed a starving child somewhere out there in this world, that is reason enough. Oh and I love the camaraderie in our team. I haven't met Yukiko yet, but I couldnt really ask for better hiking partners than Pei and Jenny!

And thank God Pei decided that NB stood for Noooo Backing Out, and not No Boys. Thats would have resulted in some funny/awkward moments at the checkpoints :)

Training #7 it snowed 43.5 kms. CP4-7

March 28, 2009

We plan to go a little further this time, 43.5 kms. A few friends wanted to join Jenny and me this time. Since it's going to be a long day, we decided to leave Tokyo early by Shinkansen. (2,200 yen more so we can trade for an hour sleep) 6.15 a.m. I arrived at Shinagawa Station. I met Xia who was waiting for me outside of the Shinkansen Central Gate. Xia was so nice that she got me a shinkansen ticket. Unfortunately, I bought mine the day before as I didn't want to waste any minutes in the morning (just in case I'm late). Then, Xia and I went to the platform to meet with Jenny and Yukiko. After we boarded the train, I just realized that Xia bought me a ticket. When we arrived at Odawara, we decided to get a refund for the ticket. Result, we got the refund but we missed the bus by a couple of seconds. Based on Oxfam info, I thought we can catch 7.15 a.m. bus if we miss the 7.10 a.m. bus. So we asked several bus drivers and tried to convince them that we should be able to get on their buses. We (mostly I) didn't want to waste 20 mins waiting for the next bus. All bus drivers looked at us like we are crazy that we can't even wait for 15-20 mins. They all so firm to tell us the same thing. "Go and wait for the bus at bus stop#4." No choice, we have to wait. Not too long, the bus arrived. We were so happy to jump in and the bus left in no time. We ride on the bus for 40 mins. 5-10 mins before we reached our destination, I feel that my legs are cold and just realized what I did. I forget to close spout of my Camelbak. I held my Camelbak (hydration integrated backpack full of Amino Vital drink) so tight that I squeezed water out and wet my pants. Look like I just did something on my pants. After we arrived, we headed towards today's starting point, CP4. No time to be wasted at Tougendai as everything was still closed. It was very chilly although the weather forecast said that it will be sunny today. We started our walk towards CP5. About 2 hours after, it started to snow. SNOW. That got us by surprise. We took out our jacket and kept walking. Nothing we can't do. No turning back for us. An hour later we were at the turning point to Saijoji, CP5. Snow subsided. Maybe because we were behind or at the other side of the mountain. When we arrived at CP5, it was bright and sunny. No sign of snow at all. We had a quick lunch and left for CP6.

CP5 to CP6 is the most boring part for the whole trail as we hike most of the time on forestry road (paved road). So we tried to come up with several topics to discuss. Mostly just to entertain ourselves so we won't fall asleep after lunch. When we reached CP6, Xia decided to leave us at 3.06 p.m. I hope it's because of the paved road, not us.

Yukiko, Jenny and I continued our journey to CP7. This was the section where I couldn't complete it two weeks ago as we lost the map. (please read details from our training#5) I really look forwards to complete this section. Nothing was so special until we reached picture#17-18 on the instruction. The instruction says to follow a tree with white paint. Easy, right? Not really. We found a lot of trees with white paint but since we were so sure that there are no other ways to go, we kept going and going. Then, we felt that there were no trails at all. Looking at the map again, we should reach the next point in the instruction by now. It’s getting late. And we want Yukiko to make it back to Tokyo in time for her boyfriend’s birthday party. She is so dedicated herself to the training. Way to go, Yukiko. We didn’t want to go further and got lost so I called Phil, again. Phil didn’t recall any trees with white paint. Now we panicked. Thanks to Jenny. She told us to climb a little hill up to other parallel trail, which has some pink ribbons. In Japan, you will find a lot of ribbons as markers for events. We hope pink ribbons will lead us out of the forest. And yes, we found the wooden bridge. So we are back on track. We had no problems after that following the instruction until we reached Suruga Oyama (almost CP7). We found out that we missed the 6 p.m. something train and next train was almost 45 mins away. Yukiko won’t reach Tokyo until 9.30 p.m. Determined to have Yukiko go to her BF’s party, we called for a cab. It will take a cab 30 mins or so to be there. That’s it, Yukiko decided. We are going for dinner at a café across the street. I think this is the only place in town that still opened at 6.30 p.m. We went in and found a few people there. I’m afraid that I can’t eat so fast and then we will miss the train again so I asked for take-out. People in the café are very nice. They recognize that we are training for Oxfam and started to have conversation with us in Japanese. Of course, it was short (since it’s in Japanese). We will be back again.

After we got our yakisoba (Japanese fried noodle), we went back to the train station and got a ride back safely to Tokyo. FYI, I was the first one who finished yakisoba. It was so delicious. Until next time, Suruga Oyama Café (I hope that is the name), I will be back and order yakisoba, this time for 2.