On the morning of the race day, we got up to a few inches of snow on the ground, and more falling. All of us realized the half-marathon had just become a major adventure!
URC members picked us up and drove us to the sports complex where the race starts and ends. Once there, we were led to a private room where we could spread out our stuff, stretch, and rest. We joked about how tough the race would be - none of us had done an event in the snow before. Heck, we were all Florida residents!! Even those of us that had lived elsewhere in the US hadn't done an event in weather like this. So we just took it easy.
The room didn't have any windows, so we couldn't see outside to tell if the weather was getting better or worse. We heard an announcement over the loudspeaker, and after a few minutes Kaki-san came in and told us the race had been canceled due to bad weather. We thought he was joking but he said he wasn't...
It actually wasn't that much of a surprise. We stepped out and saw that since our arrival, it had kept snowing and it just wasn't smart to hold the event: footing would be treacherous, volunteers would be miserable out in a snowstorm manning aid stations, etc.
So our goal shifted - we put on our coats and plastic bags, and decided to do a short snow run to the Tokyo Disney subway stop (Marihama) instead, and head back to the hotel.
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