On Feb. 7 the Himeji Castle Marathon announced that it has been canceled for the third year in a row. A total of 6200 people had been entered to run in the full marathon and accompanying fun runs on Feb. 27, but with no end in sight to the rise of new cases in the coronavirus' 6th wave organizers were forced to cancel. Runners who had already done almost all of their training and local residents who had been excited about the race's return could only shrug their disappointment off with a sigh. "Up until a few weeks ago I really thought I was going to get to run this time," said a 54-year-old local resident who had been entered. "The course is mostly flat and very easy to run, so this was a very popular race. I might do the virtual race instead, but I want to see if my friends are going to do it too first." Another entrant, a 42-year-old who owns a specialty shop making shoe insoles, has been training hard since December in the belief that the race would ha...
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