New goal

I always said that I thought marathon distance was excessive and unnecessary, but after getting to half marathon distance and seeing how freaking awesome the Tokyo Marathon course is, I think I have to do it. They have a 10k course too, but that wouldn't be a challenge, and the full marathon course goes by the Tokyo Tower, through Asakusa, and ends at the freaking Tokyo Big Site (that would be where Comiket is twice a year). So yeah, new training goal is 26.2 miles, and since it'll be for the 2010 Marathon, which is when I'm planning on being in Japan anyway (yeah, definitely don't have the money to fly over there just for a 5 hour race), there's plenty of time to train. Gradually enough and I think I could probably make it in near 4 hours. Which would be pretty good I think. If I were to be able to extend my normal 10k race pace it'd be 3.5 hours, but for now I think I'll be conservative and aim for 4. Even if I took it up a mile every two weeks I think I'd make it.

In other news, I'm planning on applying to study Japanese at the Yamasa Institute for a year starting in October 2009. Seems to be just about the best value in Japanese language schools. After putting in all the effort to get to where I am with the language studying, I just want to really try to reach fluency, to make it all worthwhile, and have a better chance at actually using it in some practical sense eventually.