Taking on Osaka 2011: One Week to Go!

by Harper Cornell on October 25, 2011

Meet Ryan - Our Wave Prophecy Video winner! Follow along with him as he ventures to the Osaka Marathon.

Hey Everyone!! My name is Ryan, and I’m the incredibly lucky winner of the trip to Osaka with Mizuno. My video for the Wave Prophecy won a few months ago!! It’s been a crazy couple months but now it’s time I get on that plane for Japan!!

I asked Mizuno if I could document the entire trip and all the amazing experiences the group is sure to have over there, and so along with my Facebook posts, and Tweets, I have a blog of sorts that you can read right here to see how everything is going on our week long adventure. 

I promise some sort of brevity for the remainder of the posts, but for now, let’s catch up with how we got to this moment…

Months ago, my friend Jason Lewis and I were talking running and all things “shoe” related when he mentioned the newest addition to the performance shoe market for Mizuno…  The Wave Prophecy. It was a huge release for Mizuno and they were having a contest to promote its arrival. I was on his list of people to take part and so after running in the shoe for several weeks, and formulating my opinions, I set out with a camera and a few ideas. Exactly 10 hours later I was finished with my Wonder Years spoof video, and the results are obvious.

Jason called me several weeks later to inform me that he had forgotten to give me a “Release” form that would allow Mizuno to use the video should they want to, which was part of the deal, and if I didn’t get it in that day, I would be disqualified. I rushed to meet him and make sure my video was still in the running. However, when he finally showed up that beautiful day in Brentwood, CA…with a camera guy, a bundle of balloons, and a TON of excitement…it took me only seconds to realize I had been set up, AND that I HAD WON!!!!

Since then, it’s been a long road to the big day, including an unfortunate minor accident late in the training, but this coming Wednesday I will be getting on the plane to San Francisco, where I’ll be meeting the rest of the group, and heading on to Osaka. The race on October 30^th is just a small part of this trip, and when the itinerary showed up today in my email with all the amazing things planned, and the summary of sites and things to do, I got super pumped to make this the trip of a lifetime. I’m unable to predict my performance as far as the running goes (due to the accident mentioned above), but I will keep the updates coming.

So please, if you want to experience Osaka with me and my Mizuno North America friends, follow along!

-=Ryan