Happy Science (Tazawako 20k Race Report)

September has been a cruel month for running races -- coming right after my summers of heat, travel and triathlons.  Last year I suffered a complete meltdown in the Vietnam Mountain Marathon and two years ago I struggled to survive the Inagi Aquathon.  

My one redeeming September run was four years ago when I managed 1:24:14 at Watarase for Half-Marathon on a warm day on flat course at 90% effort.  I enter last week's Tazawako 20k hoping to be a bit faster than at Watarase – which I figured would convert to maybe 1:18 on the 20k course around Tazawa Lake.  

In any case it sounds like a pleasant journey to an area I have never visited.   The one logistical hiccup is parking limitations at the lakefront starting area -- meaning that we  arrive a full 2.5 hours before the 10am event start.

I grumble and moan incessantly - I picture us huddling out in some muddy, windswept field, shivering on a thin tarp  for two-plus hours.  Fortunately my teammates have participated in this race year after year, and have identified an ideal base camp - only 100 meters from the 20k starting line, complete with changing and bathing facilities -- the opulent house of worship for a fringe religious group  called Happy Science

Seriously, I am not making this up – Happy Science is the actual name of the religion.  With a name like that I am not particularly surprised when we arrive at a gleaming, palatial, wedding cake-like building, and walk into an ornamental entry hall where we are greeted by a row of smiling young women in immaculate white outfits.  I am more surprised when we are escorted to into an opulent changing area for men and it is packed with other runners.  

At this point -- still two full hours before race time -- the numerous other runners using Happy Science as a base camp, begin emphatically stretching.  I am puzzled by their zeal since I doubt many of them stretch much at all before their training sessions.   I have tried to follow the rule of keeping my pre-race warmup & stretching routine only slightly more than my pre hard-workup warmup (learning years ago first-hand about exhausting oneself during a warm-up).  Observing all this pre-race energy and tension starts to make me anxious. 
  

So I wander off by myself down a long hallway deeper and deeper into the mysterious church, past a sign in Japanese (perhaps prohibiting entry to non-believers?), and into the sumptuously furnished library area.  

Of course I am terribly curious what kind-of religion would call itself "Happy Science" ?

– is it some sort-of blend of New Atheism, Utopian Marxism, Epicureanism, and recent Happiness Studies?  No, as far as I can tell from comic book style books I begin rapidly skimming through, it is really none of these.  Rather it is haphazard amalgamation of business productivity homilies,  a sprinkling of references to traditional religions and a baldly straightforward conservative political agenda.   I am still searching for the “Truth that will bring happiness to humanity", or simply any connection to a higher spiritual universe that might allow William James to characterize it as religious experience,  when suddenly I hear footsteps approaching from outside. Oh no - I fear that I will be apprehended by one of the Happy Science young women in white, perceived as an ideal convert, and worn down by some elaborate brainwashing indoctrination.  



It still seems a bit too early to start preparing for the race, but I bolt out of Happy Science and out into a throng of runners where I end up doing some 4 full kilometers of warm-up.





So I am well loosened up by 10am when the gun goes off, and so I go out pretty fast - 

covering the first 5 kilometers in 19 minutes

Then I consciously slow down a bit and hit 10k in around 38:30 

The hills from 13k to 19k slow me down further, 

but I hang on and finish in 1:19:35  












I am on the podium – 3^rd place in my age group 


– and I win a fish 

So September does not prove as cruel in 2017.  

My time is slightly slower than I hoped for, but I am philosophical --  the Happy Science literature has informed me to be modest and to keep striving to be my best.