Okinawa Marathon
Okinawa City, Japan
- Marathon, 10K
- Road (Paved)
- Official race website
The Okinawa Marathon runs through different cities, towns, and villages in central Okinawa. The marathon aims to encourage people to enjoy running and increase their fitness level throughout Okinawa. The Marathon Race Committee hopes that the marathon will help the international and inter-cultural exchanges and it will add to your … MORE
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Energetic local race
It could have been super humid and rainy during the run. Instead, it rained overnight and stopped half an hour before the race! When the clouds cleared, it got quite … MORE
It could have been super humid and rainy during the run. Instead, it rained overnight and stopped half an hour before the race! When the clouds cleared, it got quite sunny. Arms burned from lack of sunscreen. Too hot for an LS shirt. As a rule, I only wore shorts and the race shirt, and I usually don’t wear it until the race is over. Needed to keep carry-on under 7kg!
The course had 1400 ft of vert and downhill as well, which is quite unusual for a road race. It’s par for the course for trail ones.
The expo was quite skimpy, just the customary running gear in a few booths. There was enough food on offer at the two rows of food trucks, but nothing like what I saw at the Osaka marathon. After all, it’s a small city race.
Too bad they wouldn’t give me one of the souvenirs on their tables even though I flew from California to run this race.
There were some fun photo ops: a huge horned bull, a HIMARS launcher, some Taiko drummers, and a nice tunnel view back down onto the city.
It was a big loop around a part of the island, so there were many rolling hills, nothing undoable as it was all on road or sidewalk.
There were many AED runners to help ailing runners, as well as volunteers with cooling spray along the side of the course and many people offering all sorts of snacks, even cans of beer!
For a small city race, it was fine to do just once.
Hills and Humidity
Okinawa is a Great to visit for vacation however when running the marathon prepare yourself for a lot of hills. There were plenty of aid stations on the course however … MORE
Okinawa is a Great to visit for vacation however when running the marathon prepare yourself for a lot of hills. There were plenty of aid stations on the course however the course has a cutoff time with many check points. The packet pickup was easy but not much of an expo. Getting to the race was easy if you parked in designated spots you are bused to the start. The finish was disappointing as you only received a bottled drink and no food unless you purchased from the food trucks. The finisher medal is small but very detailed. Not a race I would run again but Okinawa I would definitely visit again.