Tamako Ekiden

This low-key ekiden held on the first day of Japanese spring, a national holiday. The course comprises four legs of approximately 6km each and includes two tasty little hills, one of which is a 400-m uphill to the finish line. Great stuff to get the heart pumping!
This is a great race with a lot to offer.

* Close. A short train ride from Shinjuku, a short walk from the station. We can even meet in the Starbucks inside Seibu Shinjuku Takadanobaba Station
* Friendly, but with some very good runners. The whole event has a very comfortable feel to it.
* A really demanding tactical course, centimetres short of 6k, rolling, with a tough downhill-uphill at either end. This is no run in the park!
* Everybody starts and finishes at the same point, so you can watch the handovers and support your team members. This also brings the advantage
of not having to travel out to and back from the end of the course, and there’s no waiting around at the end of the race (well, not much more
than is typical for any group of Nambanners).
* Finally, it is cheap—which means you don’t get yet another T-shirt that you don’t want or need, but you do get something; something that
changes every year, and that has included day-glo pink and green woolen gloves and other oddities.
We have had some successful intra-club races on this course, and our
women’s teams have a long history of success.

When: March 20 (Japanese national holiday)

Getting there: From Shinjuku, take the Seibu Shinjuku Line to Musashi Yumato (about 40 minutes).