The time is near and I am about to go to sleep before the Tokyo Marathon in the morning.  Our good friends Erin and Sophie Nakamura spent the day with us visiting rabbit and owl cafes in Tokyo.  We just finished a pasta carb load dinner in Shinjuku before saying good bye to our friends for now.  The gear for tomorrow is now laid out and needless to say I am pretty excited and hope I can get to sleep.  Tomorrow will start early around 5:15am local time to eat a decent breakfast in enough time for it to digest before the start time or 9:10am.  The forecast is calling to be cloudy with a 40-50% chance of rain at race time.  The temperature is going to be approximately 45F/7C at the start and should rise to 52F/11C.

For the Asia leg of my 7 marathons on 7 continents challenge, I would like to mention a very strong woman from Pakistan who contacted me when she learned of my initiative.  Sadaf Faisal had two beautiful daughters who were both victims of MLD.  Like many other children with MLD, her young daughters Rumaisa and Zara had missed some growth and development milestones. It was unclear of what the issue was and the initial diagnosis was cerebral palsy. Like many parents, Sadaf and her husband went through many struggles with the issues their daughters faced after MLD was finally diagnosed.    Rumaisa is forever 8 years old and Zara is forever 5 years old and will always be in their parent’s hearts.

The one theme I am trying to emphasize with this challenge is that MLD can affect anyone on any continent, country, time zone, etc. It does not discriminate against what race you are, what religion you practice, or what your social status is.

I will be dedicating all of the races in my challenge to my niece Cori, but I would also like to dedicate it to the memory of Rumaisa and Zara.  Tomorrow I will set out on a journey to Run Over MLD for you.

Please help to support the MLD Foundation by donating on our Run Over MLD website.

Arigato Gozaimasu!

Rumaisa ZaraRumaisa and Zara