Ok, this is mostly a facts post. I just wanted to let everyone know that while we did notice the earthquake here, nothing bad really happened in our prefecture. The 6.7 quake was centered about 100 miles from here and did a pretty good deal of damage in what is already a poor ken. I was actually rock climbing at the time and didn't really notice anything from the original quake but I did feel several of the aftershocks, including one last night at about midnight and one this morning, kind of a seismic wake up call. As I mentioned, while rock climimbing I noticed an odd shaking in the trees and what sounded like an animal moving quickly, which was probably just the earthquake shaking the ground. As we were hiking out from the climbing area in the dark we noticed one of the aftershocks though. It was pretty cool actually, first a couple of dogs in nearby farmhouses started going nuts and shortly therafter the ground started jiggling and the roof on the nearby Buddhist temple started shaking and rattling.
Jennifer had a better show. When the quake hit, it really set things to swaying and in fact started jiggling all of our liquor stash on the shelf. She ran into the kitchen to support the stuff just as the quake was ending. We're on the sixth floor which really accentuates the shaking. Even the little quakes get the lamp swinging.

I also ran a half marathon race yesterday. I tend to think of it in terms of a big fat race, but realistically there were some mitigating factors. 1. I ran the first ten kilometers in a leisurely 56 minutes, which works out to about a 9 minute per mile pace and ran the second 11 kilometers in 46 minutes which is about 6:45 per mile. I was always told that negative splits are the way to go when running a race. Had I been in shape and run the pace that we used to run in practice, it would have worked out to about 1:31 rather than 1:42. I guess that tells me that I should train more ( which I don't really, my other hobbies tend not to rip holes in my feet and give me a case of "runners runs" for 12 hours after the event). Maybe when I get back to the states I'll be more interested in late fall races, Living History Farms for example, but unless I get someone to drag me back into it, it's unlikely in Japan.