Celebrating the longest day of the year (summer solstice) with a run of the circuit trail hugging Kyoto's mountains. Seeing the city from all different perspectives in one go was exciting. My body was far from recovered, and I suffered a lot, but I'm so happy that I made it entirely in daylight.
I was looking for the right day for this activity: a cloudy day without rain, and I wanted to do it before the hot summer. When the conditions came, I decided it was worth to take a day off, even though my body still felt rather weak from last Sunday's Rindo experience.
I cycled to the start of the trail in Kami-Katsura with the bike-sharing Pippa (there's no public transport in the night), and it was hard on the knees (the bike is super-small), but 40min of initial suffering were irrelevant in the day's perspective. To "go as light as possible", I did to not carry a headlamp nor my jacket, which turned out to be a winning bet. A big challenge of the day was avoiding chafing, as I was soaking wet in sweat 100% of the time: vaseline and good clothes did great.
I started running just before the morning twilight, and by the time I was climbing the first mountains it was almost possible to see without artificial light. The Nishiyama course went very fast as I enjoyed views of the sleepy city with the rising sun (in the clouds). I run through Arashiyama with no tourists, and even took a photo in the completely empty bamboo forest: perks of starting early! Running Rokucho Pass, that I often cycle, felt silly, but I was down to the beautiful Hozukyo-Takao course in a quick time.
From Takao, the course brought me up to Sawa-no-ike, where it transitioned to more trails and less paved roads. I really enjoyed the bits to Ninose, but once I got to Kurama I started feeling tired. It felt strange as I didn't do much elevation nor distance by then, but my legs became the limiting factor. I was reading that after an intense activity, it takes time to replenish the glycogen storage in the muscles...and after last Sunday's rindo my muscles probably had recovered little. I got to Ohara just before 11am, and decided to take a good lunch break to recover my body.
The hardest part of the Kyoto Isshu Trail certainly was the Kitayama course, which goes through the North-Eastern mountains and my Hiei: all trails that I know well. I was weak on the uphill, and it was tough to run the ridges. I was sad that the official course doesn't lead to the Hiei summit, but it's probably good that the real summit stays as a secret place.
I was extremely slow on my Hiei trails and I wanted to cry. My legs became quite painful, and the thought of going home pervaded me. "It's just the usual trail, just run home as you would normally do". It took me a lot of psychological strength to continue. At the 3-rivers trail, I decided to stop and dip my feet in the ice-cold water for a few minutes. It was a feeling of rebirth: my feet were ready for a new start! (even though such feeling didn't last for long)
The Kyoto Isshu trail brought me for a stroll on the Phylosopher's path, before going up Daimonji from the Shishigatani trail. The Shishigatani climb was very beautiful, with a couple of nice waterfalls, and I was shocked to realise that I've never done it before. A downside: it was brutally steep, and it really destroyed me. I had to stop for a few minutes on the top, before wiggling my way down South (again, the course didn't even bring me to Daimonji's summit 😂)
Down to Keage, I saw a convenience store and decided to stop again. A coffee with biscuits. Some stretching for the legs. Continuing felt super tough. It took a lot of mental strength to stand up and start running again. I could barely run 7min/km on flats, as tired as I was. Up Shogunzuka, Kyomizu, then Inari-yama. Luckily the Higashiyama course was the easiest, with little elevation and gentle hills. I kept on moving just because I wanted to finish as soon as possible. The final bit to Oiwa-yama really felt unnecessary, but I wanted to complete the whole Isshu Trail.
I got down to Fushimi-Momoyama just with the final bits of daylight. I saw the torii marking the end of the course and I wanted to scream, but I didn't have the energy for that. My goal was to complete the course in less than 16h total, and I'm so happy that I managed by just a few minutes! In hindsight, it would have been so much easier to run this with fresh legs, and I most-likely would have been a couple of hours faster. The satisfaction of succeeding overcomes it all. What a tough run this was.
Splits are:
- Nishikyogoku Pippa port
- Nishi-yama course start: 20min, 3.3km, 50m, 200Cal
- Arashiyama bridge: 57min, 7.0km, 300m, 500Cal
- Rokucho pass: 1h:29, 11.0km, 470m, 700Cal
- Atago trailhead: 1h:51, 13.7km, 520m, 850Cal
- Sawa-no-ike: 2h:53, 20.9km, 920m, 1300Cal
- Kyomi pass 3h:32, 25.2km, 1090m, 1500Cal
- Mukai-yama: 4h:57, 31.7km, 1580m, 2050Cal
- Kurama: 5h:38, 35.8km, 1700m, 2250Cal
- Ohara: 6h:35, 41.9km, 1920m, 2600Cal
- Mizui-yama: 8h:08, 46.5km, 2530m, 3100Cal
- Hiei letters: 9h:15, 51.9km, 2800m, 3500Cal
- Daimonji quasi-summit: 11h:35, 62.4km, 3300m, 4194Cal
- Keage: 12h:25, 65.9km, 3380m, 4400Cal
- Inari-yama: 14h:16, 74.7km, 3810m, 5000Cal
- Fushimi-momoyama: 15h:54, 85.0km, 4110m, 5500Cal