Skip to main content

A Report From Rikuren's New Zealand Training Camp

http://www.asahi-kasei.co.jp/asahi/jp/csr/sports/rikujo/result/2009/090408.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner
click thumbnails for full-sized photos via Team Asahi Kasei

Atsushi Sato leads Tomoya Shimizu, one of the Matsumiya twins, Satoru Sasaki and Seiji Kobayashi.

Japan's top male marathoners departed on Mar. 30 for a Rikuren-sponsored training camp in New Zealand. Lasting until Apr. 15, the training camp is taking place at the northernmost tip of New Zealand's southern island, in the town of Nelson. 2009 Berlin World Championships marathoner Masaya Shimizu (Team Asahi Kasei) is taking part in the camp along with his junior teammate Satoru Sasaki (Team Asahi Kasei). Also at the camp are prospective World Championships team members Atsushi Sato (Team Chugoku Denryoku), who is training for this month's London Marathon, and Seiji Kobayashi (Team Mitsubishi Juko Nagasaki), who was 2nd in February's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon. Others in the training group include Shimizu's twin brother Tomoya (Team Sagawa Express), the Matsumiya twins Yuko and Takayuki (Team Konica Minolta), and Atsushi Sato's teammate Naoki Okamoto (Team Chugoku Denryoku).

L-to-R: Seiji Kobayashi, Satoru Sasaki, Masaya Shimizu, Atsushi Sato, Tomoya Shimizu and a Matsumiya.

Deep in the heart of the Nelson area's epic wilderness the Japanese athletes are training three times a day. Receiving motivation from training with runners from other teams, the members of the training camp hope to return to Japan exhibiting all-around growth and development.

Tomoya Shimizu leads the pack with his twin brother Masaya on his right shoulder and a Matsumiya on his left.

Masaya Shimizu commented, "I'm feeling good and I've really been piling on the workouts! Since Rikuren is sponsoring us this time I've been able to get extra motivation from working out together with some different people, and it's been a really satisfying way to spend my training time. Thanks to the staff at the place we're staying, the Sakura B&B, and the fantastic Japanese food they've been cooking us, I've been able to get through three workouts a day, one early in the morning, one late morning, and one in the afternoon. As we're going into the second half of the camp, I think that if I can stay healthy the experience and results I'm getting here are going to pay off at the World Championships this summer."

L-to-R: Masaya Shimizu, Tomoya Shimizu, Atsushi Sato, Naoki Okamoto, Seiji Kobayashi (almost invisible), Satoru Sasaki and a Matsumiya.

Satoru Sasaki agreed, saying, "I've been feeling great too and think that practice has been going well. Before we came to New Zealand I was worried about what the food was going to be like, but it's all been delicious so now I'm looking forward to every meal. I've been learning a lot from the other runners and will keep soaking it all up in the rest of the workouts."

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Hakone Champ AGU Hits 50 km a Day in Spring Break Training Camp

Having scored its 3rd-straight Hakone Ekiden win this past January, Aoyama Gakuin University spent the Golden Week spring holidays training on the Myoko Plateau in Niigata from May 2-6. Along with the champion men's ekiden team, the first 2 members of AGU's new women's long distance team Nodoka Ashida and Kairi Ikeno , and AGU alumni and 2026 New Year Ekiden champion GMO team members Yuya Yoshida and Asahi Kuroda also took part in the training camp. Depending on the day's training schedule, mileage at the camp was over 50 km a day. AGU men's captain Kaito Nakamura confidently said, "This Golden Week training camp is where we lay the foundations for our 4th-straight Hakone title." A lot of people spend Golden Week on vacation, but the AGU ekiden team spent their time working hard on Myoko's rolling land amid the sprouting leaves of spring. On the 2nd day of the camp, May 3, team members woke up at 5:00 a.m. to do their warmup. The team assembled a...

Everything You Need to Know About the 2026 Hakone Ekiden

The Hakone Ekiden is the world's biggest road race, 2 days of road relay action with Japan's 20 best university teams racing 10 half marathon-scale legs from central Tokyo to the mountains east of Mount Fuji and back. The level just keeps going higher and higher , hitting the point this year where there are teams with 10-runner averages of 13:33.10 for 5000 m, 27:55.98 for 10000 m, and 1:01:20 for the half marathon. It's never been better, and with great weather in the forecast it's safe to say this could be one of the best races in Hakone's 102-year history, especially on Day One. If you've seen it then you know NTV's live broadcast is the best sports broadcast in the world, with the pre-race show kicking off at 7:00 a.m. Japan time on the 2nd and 3rd and the race starting at 8:00 a.m. sharp. If you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it on TVer starting at 7:50 a.m. on the 2nd , and again at 7:50 a.m. on the 3rd . There's even a 2-hour high...

70th Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden

The 70th running of the Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden happened over the start of the Golden Week holidays, a 3-day, 29-leg race covering 306.9 km around the northern prefecture of Yamagata. There used to be a lot more of these races where people from the prefecture run for their hometown teams on a Tour de Whatever prefecture or area it happens to be held in, but Yamagata's is one of the few to have survived this long. And amazingly enough, local broadcaster YBC live streamed the entire thing on Youtube. There aren't many corporate teams in the mostly rural area, so runners from the ND Software corporate team played a heavy role, its 2 best runners Masato Arao and Ryoma Takeuchi winning their stages on Day 2 with Takeuchi doubling to anchor the Kita-Murayama team to an overall 5th-place finish, and Koichi Shoji breaking the 2nd leg CR on Day 1 and winning the 2nd-to-last stage on Day 3 to play a key role in the Yamagata city team taking the overall win in 16:06:51, 3:09/km ...