The first appearance saw me take part in a program focused on the running boom in Japan. I was part of a ‘Maniac Runners’ section, coming on set in my iRun. Following this introduction the second ‘maniac’ was introduces: Baba-san. Baba-san is a very interesting guy, always trying out new running projects. Today, his task was to make ice cream whilst running, using the movement of his body to churn all of the ingredients. I was then called back and asked to live-stream the making of this ice cream as we ran around Yoyogi park together.

The filming of this was such a lot of fun, with a fantastic crew and an inspiring group of runners making up the audience. Unforgettable.

The second appearance saw me as a member of the audience, telling the story of the family who gave me a curry-pan (curry bread) for two years in a row at teh same point of the Tokyo Marathon.

The third appearance came about when I was asked if I’d like to introduce my ‘Art of Running’ project for a program focused on smart phones. It just so happened that filming day coincided with the date I’d planned to do a special Art of Running project in Ishinomaki, so instead I suggested that they send a cameraman up to join us on the run. Which they did!

Read more about that story here.

I’ve also made recent appearances in Runner’s World, Macworld Australia (thanks Roberto)

Held every December in Paris, Le Web is Europe’s biggest tech conference, with half of silicon valley flying over to meet Europe’s best and brightest entrepreneurs, inventors, and startup superstars.

In 2011 Le Web also saw the European debut of the iRun, my next-generation Social-Local-Mobile machine. This was also the first time the iRun had been seen outside of Japan – and despite concerns that it might attract the wrong kind of attention, it turned out to be a huge hit.

Read more on the CNN.com blog. Please be sure to admire the manner in which I managed to make myself look completely stoned.

Le Web also provided me with the opportunity to thank the person who got me into all this Apple / mobile tech stuff – Leo Laporte. Sincere thanks to Leo for being so welcoming.

Read more about my time at Le Web’11 here.

The Art of Running was this week featured in R25, one of the Japan’s most popular free magazines for men, with a circulation of about 150,000 in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. It was included in a section titled ‘Unique ways to enjoy your smartphone for 0yen‘.

My thanks to Kana for the coverage.

On April 22nd 2011 I undertook the longest Art of Running challenge that I have attempted to date: a 50km heart around the city that I love. Inside of the heart I then drew a the character ‘心’ which means mind/heart/spirit/inner strength.

Whilst I usually do these runs alone (constant stopping and starting, taking sharp turns or doubling back doesn’t appeal to a lot of runners!), this time I had company, in the form of Erin Beresini, who was an LA-based writer at Competitor Magazine. She’d come across some of my other pieces and contacted me about coming over to Japan to write a feature on them – part of her research would be to join me on the road as we created a new work of art. (We also visited the head of the Tokyo Marathon as part of the research – he was unaware that the article would be about me and assumed that I was the interpreter, until I gave him my card. He was somewhat surprised to learn that I was that guy who’d live streamed the marathon…)

The 7 page article was published this month (read it here)

As it happened, I made a bit of mistake during this run by miscalculating our average speed over the first 10km. As a result of that, I speeded up to an unsustainable pace without really being aware of it. This, combined with the fact that I hadn’t really run in two months (since the Tokyo Marathon) meant that my body wasn’t too happy – and sure enough, at about the 15km mark I was beginning to wince with the pain in my left knee. I would later find out that I had given myself Iliotibial band syndrome, and wouldn’t be able to run for 5 weeks afterwards!

Anyhow, the first 25km had taken a lot longer than expected, and coupled with the pain in my leg we decided to split it over two days. That didn’t really help much though, so the second 25km were the most painful I’ve ever been through, but nonetheless, we did it!

I was happy to have a good friend cooltiger join us for the second day – she was a great support. She has an interesting running project, whereby she combines running with stops at bakeries, samples their nicest breads and interviews the staff. You can find her bilingual site here.

Cooltiger also took a bunch of photos along the way – check them out here.

This route was partially inspired by a ‘natural’ feature of Tokyo – the Yamanote loop train line (in green in the image to the right) that is, in a way, the heartbeat of the city, connecting all of the major stations. However, it needed a few refinements, thus we extended the course a fair but to the West, and also dipped further down at the top.

This run was actually a fair but further than 50km – I’m not sure of the exact distance but the untracked sections between the kanji strokes and the outer heart certainly added up – plus we got a bit lost at the start!

I was wondering – would this be visible from space?!

In addition to these, I made numerous appearances on Tokyo MXTV, Fuji TV, NHK, TBS, and BBC Radio.

• CNN.com: Marathon Man streams, tweets run [Video]
• CNN.com: Runner completes ‘online’ marathon in Tokyo – CNN.com [Text article]
• CNN.co.jp: 「市民ランナー」が世界選手権へ、iPhone実況ランナーも完走
• Engadget: Man will run Tokyo Marathon with dizzying array of gadgetry, amazing lack of shame
• The Telegraph (via AP): iRun lets you experience the Tokyo Marathon [Video]
• Metro.co.uk: Joseph Tame completes Tokyo Marathon covered in iPhones
• New York Times: Sports Replay [Photo]
• New Scientist TV: DIY Contraption lets others experience your run
• Discovery Channel: Planet You [Video]
• Rocket News 24: iPhone4台とiPadを駆使し、「東京マラソン」をUst生中継するテイムさんがスゴイ！
• Daily Mail: iRun Fast
• CNET: Man to run marathon in wacky iPhone harness
• Time Out Tokyo: Go go gadget! We speak to the inventor of the iRun / “iRun”開発者、東京を走る
• IT Media News: “Ust実況ランナー”がパワーアップ、今年も東京マラソンに iPhone4台で「iRun」
• Japan Times: Ganbaru Gadgets
• TUAW: Marathon Man prepares for second live stream
• Japan Times ‘Ustream goes mainstream‘

Unfortunately I’m missing page three!

Here’s the start of the article, which won’t be available online for much longer.

Japan’s capital reinvigorates an old pastime with new technologies

Story by Paige Ferrari

As I run I tell myself to think of a river. And clouds. But essentially I’m not thinking of anything. All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody says.
Haruki Murakami, “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”

Every morning before rush hour – and weekday evenings just before dusk – the path around Tokyo’s Imperial Palace bulges with runners.

Some are plugged into headphones, others chit chat with a partner. Some move at barely more than a walk whereas others zoom past, seeming to create their own wind. On weekends, thousands of runners come together to form a bobbing, sweating mass of humanity: a sort of living monument to the Japanese concept of gaman (endurance).

“We’re in the middle of a real running boom,” says Bob Poulson, leader and founder of Tokyo’s popular running club, Namban Rengo. Over the past 3 years – “It all started with the Tokyo Marathon in 2007,” he notes – what used to be a sport for the disciplined few, has seen a surge of interest from new devotees.

For the 2010 Tokyo Marathon, over 272,000 hopefuls entered a lottery for 32,000 slots. Forty percent of them were first-time marathoners. Next year promises to be even bigger. In the first 24 hours of availability, more than 32,000 people applied, according to the Daily Yomiuri.
“For the New York Marathon, you might get 100,000, maybe 150,000 entrants,” says Poulson. “But nowhere else in the world do a quarter of a million people apply for a marathon.”

The craze has even spawned business opportunities. Those paths around the Palace have become so popular that in the last few years new service areas have popped up offering showers and refreshments to the sweaty, thirsty, masses.

When it comes to exercise trends, running seems like the anti-fad. It is, after all, arguably the simplest form of exercise, requiring no special equipment, no prescribed uniform, and no fealty pledge to the guru of the moment. Fitness fads also come and go within a season or two, whereas the running trend seems to just keep building every year. This may be thanks to the fact that in Japan, (in true Japanese style) this classic form of fitness comes with a few modern twists.
In contrast to the solitary-jogger stereotype, the new wave of runners is more extroverted, more social. Runners come to clubs like Poulson’s Namban Rengo not only to get fit, but also to share their passion with others. The idea seems a natural fit in Japan, where there is a national obsession with road relay races like the popular Hakone Ekiden, events where running is viewed as a celebration of teamwork as much as individual achievement…

[that's where the online version ended!]

IT Media News published a follow-up story in April 2010, in which I talked about how the mobile networks and iPhone had ‘changed my life’.

The day following the marathon, I featured in Fuji TV’s coverage of the Tokyo Marathon on ‘Tokudane’ (video no longer available).

In June 2010 I was featured in Weekly Ascii’s review of notable online events in the first half of 2010. A full interview was also published online.

I was also featured in local papers in the UK: The Hereford Times

The Sheffield Star

BS-TBS also featured me in a program about Ustream.

I’ve also given talks to Japanese ad agencies, at social media events, and also at PechaKucha.

All-in-all, it was a successful campaign in which all the media came to me!