He did great. In the first round he was third and so he moved into the second round. Second round he placed fourth and was eliminated. We are very proud of his result and he worked hard to compete in the event. I attached a video of his first performance for you to see him go.
This past weekend was the Mt Fuji International Hill Climb.
This event is actually huge in Japan. This year there were 4668 participants. The course is run on the Subaru Blueline which is a toll road that runs up to the fifth station of Mt Fuji. Start is in a parking lot 1 km before the toll booths of the road but official time starts just before the toll booths. Finish is 24 kilometers and 1255 meters later. The entire course was uphill averaging 5% climb with a max of 7%. The course record is 1 hr set by a pro rider.
My original plan was to drive down the night before, register, and then sleep in the car. A few hours before leaving I got a phone call from my friend Maeshima san asking if I wanted to go down together and stay in his hotel room. It sounded like a better plan and so I drove to Utsunomiya picked him and his girlfriend up in the van and headed to Fuji. The van was a little tight, but everything fit with little effort.
After arriving we checked in walked around checking out the booths and then headed for dinner. After dinner we went to an onsen (hot spring) to relax and then went to bed early. The next morning we were up by 4:30 am and on our way by 5:20. Maeshima for some reason was able to get access to the closest parking area so we drove almost to the start, parked and unloaded the bikes. We even had time to leisurely prep the bikes and head out for a warm up.
The start was a rolling start and official time was not recorded until about 1 km in (so we actually rode 25 km). The time was recorded via a chip that was mounted to the front fork. We rode over a green mat and I could hear a chime when it triggered. The ride up was actually more challenging than I thought. I have trained on some of the hills in Tochigi (close to home) that have a much steeper angle to them. I think what made this difficult was the length, altitude, and the sheer number of people participating. The beginning of the course was a little steeper than the end and so my pace was a little slower than I had planned. As a result I became frustrated that I was not going faster and I also felt that it would be difficult to maintain my pace if the difficulty stayed at that level. At the 3rd or 4th station there were men playing Japanese drums loud and rhythmically to motivate the riders. It actually did help me to re-focus and I was able to pick my pace back up and finish strong. There is a company that goes to the events to take pictures that you can buy. I bought the one below from them.
In the end I was able to finish the course in 1 hr 13 min. Before the race I wanted to get 1 hr and 10 min. In my class there were 1040 people, my time was good enough for 50th place, out of the 4668 people that participated I was 213th. If I could have met my target of 1 hr 10 min I would have been about 16th in class. Anyway I am happy with that result. At the top while waiting to meet up with Maeshima san I ran into another friend Hakamata san. While we were talking we were approached by a reporter from a cable television company and asked if we could be interviewed. I was happy because I was able to answer all the questions, and in Japanese..
At the top Maeshima san and I posed for some pictures. This year Maeshima san could better last years result by 2 min.
The view from the 5th station was great. At the start of the event we could see Mt Fuji very clearly, but by the time we reached the top clouds had rolled in and we were above them. The picture below is looking out over the clouds and you can see other mountains off in the distance.
We hung out at the top for an hour or two checking out the souvenir stands and some of the bikes people had ridden up. I got a chuckle out of the gentleman below. He was intent on getting a good photo of his ice cream with Fuji in the background. He probably stood there for 5 minutes taking pictures so I snagged one of him.
Kate laughed at me for laughing at him as she said I did the same thing he did when I took the below picture. In my defense I have two things to say.. 1. You can tell by the quality of my photo that I did not spend so much time taking it. 2. My photo is of a Mt Fuji pastry with Mt Fuji in the background, it is much more meaningful..
At the bottom we were given bags to put gear in for the ride down. I put a jacket, arm warmers, leg warmers, gloves, and a hat. The items were driven to the top in a bus and we picked them up before heading down. It is a good thing they have this service as it is really cold at the top and as much effort as it takes to ride up, it takes none to go back down the 24 kilometers. Without the extra clothing we would have frozen.
I snagged a short video of the coast down. There are still a number of people making their way up the mountain on our way down, some have resorted to walking, but they are still moving up..
At the bottom we turned in a ticket for a bowl of Udon. It definitely hit the spot after burning all those calories.
The event is huge and draws people from all over with a huge variety of bikes. One bike was saw was made almost entirely of wood. I saw this same bike in a Japanese magazine and it was $20,000..
Erin and Grandma and Grandpa Hughes arrived in Japan this week. They were able to ride the bus from Narita to Utsunomiya with no troubles by themselves. Everyone was tired after arriving and started to fall asleep as we talked a little. More adventures to come with them in the next post.
That is all for this post, have a great week.
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