I had tried before and failed to get a place in the Tokyo marathon via the ballot so this time I booked with Sports Tours International.  I couldn't really fault them; communication was good, and everything (flights, hotel, entry etc.) was well organised, so all I had to worry about was the run.

I arrived on Thursday morning and went straight to the expo.  The registration process was efficient but, in terms of stands, I didn't think this was as good as the London, Berlin or Chicago expos.  If you are an international runner don't go there expecting to pick up your usual gels etc. for the race.  There were a couple of stands with nutritional brands I recognised but most of what was on offer was unfamiliar.  The Asics stand had massive queues so I ended up getting an Asics Tokyo 2018 top from a department store later in my trip.

I stayed in Shinjuku, which is where the race starts.  I would recommend this because it meant I didn't have to leave early to get to the start and I didn't have to hang around long in the cold.  Tokyo has a really good underground rail system and I was able to use that to explore on Friday and Saturday without wearing myself out before the race on Sunday.

I found pre-race nutrition a little challenging.  I'm a vegetarian and trying to find things that I was familiar with (and I knew wouldn't disturb my tummy) and didn't have animal products in, was difficult given my lack of Japanese.  My hotel did a good breakfast buffet, which helped, but I probably could have done a bit more research in advance.

On race day I got to my pen about 30 minutes before I started running.  It is quite crowded at the start, but the road is wide.  Because the first few km are downhill it is hard not to go too fast.  It doesn't seem to be the most scenic of runs but you do get to see the mix of old and new in the city.

It is cup-only along the course, but there were plenty of drinks stations.  I'm someone who isn't great with cups and normally manages to fling the water in my eye or up my nose, but these were stiff paper cups and worked fine.  There were loads of volunteers holding out bags for runners to drop cups in and there was virtually no litter on the course at all!  This is so different to the other road races I have done, and it was great not having to run along treading on cups or avoiding bottles.

The energy drink was Pocari Sweat, which is not a drink that we have in the UK and early on I realised that me and Pocari Sweat did not get on, so I stuck to water.  Next time I would probably bring some tabs, so I could make up my own energy drink.  In terms of food, I saw loads of oranges, tomatoes - apparently there were bananas but I didn't manage to get any of the latter.

The course is pretty flat, so no hills to worry about.  There are a couple of places where you see the faster runners on the other side of the road.  Great to see the elites zooming past but later in the race, when I was heading away from the finish at about 31km, and on the other side the runners only had a couple of km to go it wasn't the best feeling in the world!

The finish was great with enthusiastic crowds on both sides of the road making a huge amount of noise as we ran down the last few 100 metres.

We were then filtered, depending on the colour of our bibs, to different places to pick up our bags.  On the way we were given a bottle of water, medal, towel (great idea), goodie bag with sandwich and drink etc.  After that we had a very long walk to the baggage pick up area.  We were give a foil blanket but, given it was a cold day, the distance wasn't ideal.  Once I had got to the baggage area, my bag was produced very quickly, and I was directed to the shuttle bus and managed to get back to my hotel pretty swiftly.

Tokyo doesn't have the banners that entertain you in Chicago and London, or the amount of live music you find in Berlin (I've yet to do NYC or Boston).  However, huge pros for me were the opportunity to experience the fascinating city of Tokyo and the wonderful support the runners got from the crowds and volunteers.