It may be full swing cyclocross in Japan - Daisuke's *Nobeyama CX race was last weekend - and looked like a total muddy mess, in a good way! There was another competitor that was out there as well and he is pictured on the side of Mt. Fuji in the photo above. I'm not sure he raced this past weekend, but when we took to the Mt. Fuji Ekiden in August, Mr. Hirohide Kubota was right there by our side with a hearty "Let's Vitamin!" to keep us going. 

Hiro was the base tape under our (three layers) tubular glue. The B.J. Armstrong to our mid-90's Chicago Bulls. Our Franco Harris. Our... ok, maybe the last one is a stretch, but he was the first one up in the morning and he helped corral Brian Vernor and I through our many adventures. 

Fuel & Engine - Hiro's cycling adventures via Tumblr

He was also our de-facto jump model when it came to testing out the Ekiden running kit, and the reason that I'm talking at you today — the Ekiden socks. They're back in stock and ready to roll for the holidays! We may have made promises to Hiro of a long and storied modeling career, but no one is too sure where that might be headed, we are hoping for another showing on Mt. Fuji at the very least. Side Note: if you scroll up and down really fast on this blog post it looks like Hiro is actually standing on the mountain. 

Looks in this post:
Mt. Fuji Ekiden Sock - Orange 
 PDX-Ray Casquette 
Mt. Fuji Running Top

*Take a look at that link it is my guess that first blog post is a photo essay surrounding the items that were lost and found at the races over the weekend. Such a respectful and practical way to handle an annoying thing. 
**Fear not Daisuke — you were definitely our Phil Jackson in this case.