Team Flexifitness, in Osaka for Osaka Marathon 2014

Osaka Marathon - United as a team

Left to Right - Lim Thow Wee, Dr Benny Goh, Coach Rameshon, Desmond Soh, Kenneth Lai, Jennifer Quek, Eliz 

I flew here on the 24th of Oct 2014 and reached Osaka/Kansai Airport at 9 10pm. Lim Thow Wee helped me in getting the airline tickets. He was supposed to meet at 9 30pm, as his flight was a different one on Friday itself. Somehow, we met at a meeting point, at McDonald's at about 10 pm, which was a second floor, after our customs clearance. Lim Thow Wee was accompanied by his wife, Eliz, who came here to support him and Team Flexfitness athletes in the marathon race.

Lim Thow Wee had dinner yesterday

Today, we had our breakfast at one of the restaurants near our hotel, Hotel Hearton, which is nearly 3km away from the start point of the Osaka Marathon 2014. We met Dr Benny Goh, Kenneth Lai, Jennifer Quek and Desmond Soh. We were, however, not able to meet Mabel Low, during the meeting, as it was a bit late to meet her in Japan. Yesterday, we reached the hotel at nearly 11pm, in fact. There was not much time to communicate and we were feeling sleepy also. Thow Wee was hungry and I told him to eat as carboloading is very important for his race.  He was told not to miss the food, even though it was late at night. He did not get enough food. We took our breakfast in a Japanese restaurant and discussed on hydration strategies, the route, the problems, the goals etc.

Banner to state that we will be CHEERING ALL THE WAY!

Basically, the runners told me that they just want to improve their time, just like how Ashley Liew did in Chicago Marathon 2014, 2hr 35min 39sec> Hence the aim was to at least do a personal best time. Kenneth Lai, as he just came out of injury, has planned to do a 6min per km run for the whole marathon here. He is doing this as a training run, I guess, more to condition himself for his future race.

Photo was taken to show that road signs on Osaka Marathon are up

As Dr Benny Goh, Kenneth Lai, Jennifer Quek and Desmond Soh have collected, Lim Thow Wee and his wife decided to go to the fair to collect the number tag for Thow Wee.

Osaka Marathon - After running the Paris Marathon, Thow Wee has chosen this marathon carefully.

We collected our number tag of Thow Wee and bought some running products as well. After that, we proceeded for lunch. After lunch, we proceeded to our hotel to take a nap.

Photo was taken near our hotel

We are taking our dinner and we are about to sleep at about 10pm, I guess. Tomorrow, we will be writing a blog post on the race.

We wish all the runners running tomorrow and to our Flexifitness runners all the best in this race. Let us hope that they do their personal best times tomorrow.

30000 runners will be running in this race. The weather is expected to be 12 to 20 degrees centigrade. The course is generally flat as seen in the video during the fair.



Note:

By Narayanan
Rameshon has taught in Hwa Chong Institution, plus several schools, and Republic Polytechnic as well. He has won many accolades and he was awarded Merit Award for 1991 marathon performance in breaking the national record of Singapore, at that time. He has made 22 male athletes do a marathon in sub-3hrs. He has made 7 female runners do sub-4 hours for the marathon, as well. He was inducted to the ‘Roll of Honour’  by the then College of Physical Education, organised by Singapore Olympic Academy, in 1998, for breaking the National record repeatedly 4 times, till he did 2hr 24min 22sec).

He also has a Coaching group and he trains them on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 7pm at Botanic Gardens. Those interested can call him at 91004369 for coaching assistance, to improve performance. There is also personal training that he does for many in a week. You can e-mail him at swift.rameshon@gmail.com.