I did my usual daily fast c.42km. It's just over 4km down some pretty busy roads - which combined with the heat is why I usually start before 6am - from where we're staying to my chosen start point on the wide Arakawa river bank cycling and running track. I do 16.5km (it's marked out) TT-style, hard and fast and usually into the strong winds that come off Tokyo Bay, until I get to the very end just where the final bridges go over the river and the cormorants stand on the rocks, and egrets poke in the grass and reeds that are the only bits of nature left next to the endless sprawl of factories and apartment blocks.
I stop and do some stretching and exercises looking out towards the bay. There's usually a couple of the most wiry old geezers who look like they've been running a marathon a month all their lives, who run down to the same point and stretch out, but other than that there's no-one there. On my cheap steel track bike, I pass plenty of other cyclists on their fancy Italian carbon frames inevitably equipped with Dura-Ace, but none of them can stay with me (a few have tried). They just can't seem to ride into the wind, and for some reason they never come right to the end.
Then I turn and coast back to my start point, with the wind behind me, just spinning the single gear much more relaxed (but still quick). Then it's back through the thickening to rush-hour traffic, hoping the traffic lights aren't too much against me all the way...
Coupled with the Japanese diet and the summer heat, this (almost) daily ride means I've lost a good 4kg in weight and I'm starting to look like my old self again. I'll miss Tokyo when I leave...