I didn’t tell too many people this, but I’ve actually been dreaming of running the Osaka Marathon for nearly 13 years — which is the amount of time it’s been around.
When I was sponsored by Mizuno Philippines from 2011 to 2014, they mentioned the possibility of sending me to the Osaka Marathon since Mizuno Japan is one of the race’s major sponsors. Back then I went ham on my research about the race and the city, to the point where some of the clothes I pulled out as part of my annual allocation were what I considered “cold-weather gear” I could use when I ran the race.
Anyway, that plan fell through and I ended up never going. Thirteen years later (actually 12 years, because I started planning this particular race-cation last year even before I’d run the Sydney Marathon), I signed up for the Osaka Marathon lottery because my good friend Joel was racing it in an attempt to get a better time than he’d managed at the 2024 Tokyo Marathon.
A week after I ran Sydney with a competent 4:03 (but slower than my planned sub-4 hour finish), the Osaka Marathon lottery results were out — and I was in. With the race in February 2025, I could use the base built from Sydney to try for sub-4 again.
(In the back of my mind, I really wanted to break my old 3:57 personal best, which I’d set in December 2010 at the 34th Milo Marathon final.)
A few short weeks later, I was at the starting line. Watch my race week vlog below, or scroll down for some pointers on running the Osaka Marathon.
I finally got the monkey off my back, not only finishing the Osaka Marathon under four hours but also breaking my 15-year personal best.
So in case you want to run the Osaka Marathon, here are some tips that will help you navigate the journey. There’s a lack of English-language articles about the race, so I want to help close the gap in knowledge by sharing what I’ve learned.
Kikay Runner’s Tips to Running the Osaka Marathon
Acclimation and Familiarization
Much like how I did Sydney, I spent a few days in the same country but in another city before moving to race central so I could acclimate to the weather. For Sydney I went to Melbourne (which I thought would be much colder), and for Osaka I went to Kyoto.
I spent four days in Kyoto. During this time I familiarized myself with the Japanese rail, metro and bus systems, figured out how to keep myself fed, and bought gear and equipment that would keep me warm because I was underprepared for the single-digit temperatures that this spring in Japan would record. It snowed on my second day while I wandered Arashiyama — little did I know this experience would come in handy for the race!
It being my first time in the country also, I wanted some wiggle room so even if I made mistakes the stakes would be much lower than if I arrived right before the race. It was during this wandering and my kimono rental on my third day that I discovered the wonders of pocket warmers (what the Japanese call “kairo”). While I ended up making a mistake buying a bulk box of 30 pieces at Don Quijote, I was able to give some to my teammates and keep some for future use.
Want to watch my Kyoto travel vlog? Here it is:
Overcoming the Language Barrier
During a few years in university I was what people call a “weeaboo”: a derogatory term for a non-Japanese obsessed with anime and manga (particularly Rurouni Kenshin). It was how I learned to read the hiragana and katakana Japanese alphabets and picked up some basic vocabulary and phrases. If Spanish has “Donde es el biblioteca” as a sample sentence, I learned to say “Toshokan wa doko desu ka”.
Of course these days I’m rusty and sometimes Korean vocabulary (from watching too many kdrama series) is on the tip of my tongue instead of Japanese, but having this knowledge in my back pocket along with Google Translate on my phone helped me navigate the transportation system, ask mall concierges where particular shops were, and even click through website menus.
(Try checking in online on a Jetstar flight originating from Japan — no English version on the website!)
It’s their country, and you have to be accepting of the discomfort and potential of being lost in translation. It’s bound to happen and you have to give yourself and the other party the grace to laugh at mistakes and enough leeway to bounce back from them.
Race Day Challenges
Race Central
I tried not to use my phone too much navigating to Osaka Castle on race day, so I followed a few people who were also carrying the Osaka Marathon street gear bags. Unfortunately, they got off at the Morinomiya station on the Chuo metro line instead of transferring to the JR rail line and getting off at Osakajokoen, which would bring me closer to the women’s bag drop site at Osaka-jo Hall. I ended up unknowingly using the change room facilities at Cool Japan Park, which were for the 720 Naniwa Marathon runners (running only 7.20 kilometers). I had to run all the way north to the correct bag drop, then run back down to get into my start corral. Anyway, it was a suitable warm-up especially since the race day temperatures hovered between 3 to 5 degrees Celsius.
The bigger problem was toilet facilities: aside from the bag drop locations which were stadiums with plenty of toilets, the queues to portalets were kilometric in length. Thankfully, with about 10 minutes until gunstart for my wave we were able to hop some barriers and use the portalets which had earlier been reserved for the first and second wave runners.
Traffic
Now, during the lottery sign-up they asked for a marathon finish time from 2021 or later. Unfortunately, I hadn’t run Sydney Marathon yet and my last marathon was in 2017. So I left that field blank and put an estimated finish time of 4 hours. This resulted in me being placed in Corral G, which would be let off in the third wave, the largest and potentially slowest one. Fair enough, I would just have to run faster to get some clear road ahead of me.
It was quite congested nearly all the way through and I was always watching out for running up into slower runners, kicking their feet, and dodging the ones who suddenly stopped or veered toward the sidelines to greet family and friends.
Weather Conditions
Because I had been cold in Kyoto, I had a pocket warmer at the starting line. I initially was going to discard it along with my first throwaway layer, but instead I put it in the pocket of the jacket I would wear until halfway. When it was time to discard the jacket, I held the pocket warmer in my hands.
And then it began to snow all along the race course. I was so thankful I’d kept the warmer; I transferred it from hand to hand to defrost my cold fingers, only putting it in my Flipbelt tights thigh pocket whenever I needed to free up my hands to take on some nutrition.
I still had the pocket warmer as I finished, and put it inside my bra top during the slow procession to get our street gear bags. Alongside my 30% body fat, it might have been what helped keep me from getting hypothermia unlike Joel, who ended up in a med tent post-race. (He’s fine.)
Getting Enough Rest While Being a Tourist
A running and triathlon coach who is a friend usually advises his students to keep the touristic eating and wandering for after the race, which I think is a good rule of thumb. However, I had difficulty after Sydney last year so I didn’t want to do any walking tours on post-marathon legs.
What kept me fresh was some rest I had unintentionally built into my pre-race activities: for most of my last day in Kyoto I had to stay at my hotel waiting to buy tickets for JHope’s Manila concert, then I had to work on my laptop the day before race day. These instances helped me recover from the other days I’d walked around and traveled, but also moving around on the other days made sure my legs weren’t stale either.
(BTW, I think I trained well for this marathon because I was not sore at all the next day!)
I had a really great time running the Osaka Marathon, and I have no regrets about my training, my lead-up, and how I ran the race itself. Mission: accomplished.
