Skip to main content

Hoshino Takes Seventh Fuji Mountain Race Title

http://mainichi.jp/area/yamanashi/news/20100724ddlk19040123000c.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

With 4686 runners making up its largest-ever field, the 63rd annual Fuji Mountain Race took place July 23. With last year's race having been cut off at Mt. Fuji's 5th Stage due to fog and rain at the mountain's summit, this year under dazzling summer skies the event returned to its usual format with runners competing in either the 21 km, 3000 m climb Summit division or the 15 km, 1460 m climb 5th Stage division. In the men's Summit race, Shinya Takahashi, 35, of Iwate Prefecture, took his first win in 2:53:00. Yoshimi Hoshino, 44, of Shizuoka Prefecture, the course record holder and two-time winner in the 5th Stage division, took her fifth Summit win eight years after her last Summit victory. 5th Stage men's winner Satoshi Kato was only 38 seconds off the course record, running 1:19:57, while women's winner Mina Ogawa was only a minute and a half off Hoshino's record. It was the first win for both Kato and Ogawa.

Beginning this year, the Summit division is limited to runners who have completed 5th Stage division in less than 2 1/2 hours within the past three years. Thanks to this restriction, the rate of participants completing the Summit race under the 4 1/2 hour time limit rose 10% among men and 9.8% among women. 1198 men completed the Summit division, a finisher rate of 54.1%, while only 48 women reached the mountain's top, a finisher rate of 39.0%. On the 5th Stage course 2041 men finished, a rate of 97.9%, and 248 women completed the distance under the time limit, 94.3% of the starters. While temperatures at the start were over 30 degrees, Mt. Fuji's peak was only 8.6 degrees.

"I like courses that are so steep you have to crawl," Takahashi told members of the media afterwards, "so this was perfect for me, especially the rocky part near the peak. That was a lot of fun." At the 5th Stage checkpoint more than 10 runners were ahead of Takahashi, but, he says, "I told myself to just take my time." One by one he overtook the leaders as the course steepened, and near the 9th Stage checkpoint he took the lead and ran unchallenged to the finish, his first win in the prestigious Mt. Fuji race. However, his joy at winning is tempered by feelings of regret towards his colleagues at Hachimantai City Hall in Iwate. Takahashi leaves work promptly at the end of each day in order to get in his training rather than staying to work overtime with everyone else in the office. "Since today is a weekday I couldn't tell any of them that I was taking time off to come run here," he said. "I don't think I'll be able to tell any of them that I won once I get back. But for me this wasn't about winning or losing, it was about conquering myself."

Women's Summit winner Hoshino commented, "I came here to say thank you to Mt. Fuji for the last time. I was not thinking about winning." The 5th Stage course record holder, Hoshino won the Mt. Fuji Summit race four times in a row from 1998-2002. Her best time of 3:05:16 would be good enough to put her in the top ten in the men's race most years. But, she says, "Age is catching up to me, and my strength is slipping away. I've had a lot of problems with fatigue and injury." In recent years Hoshino has repeatedly dropped out of the Summit race and has frequently opted to run the 5th Stage course instead. She planned for this year's Fuji Mountain Race to be her last. "This time I wanted to leave everything, including my past shame, on the slopes of Mt. Fuji," she said. "But now I'm already thinking about running next year."

Men's 5th Stage winner Kato was running the race for the first time. "Damn, that was long. I'm beat," he told reporters. "Once we got into the woods I was completely on my own." Kato trains on mountain trails near his home in Aichi Prefecture each morning before work. "I always train in the mountains, but getting to the 5th Stage felt way longer than 15 km," he said. "I'm really happy to win. I wanted to run the Summit race, but this was my first time and with the rule change I couldn't. I'm going to take it easy for a while now but I'll be back next year."

Women's 5th Stage winner Ogawa was also running for the first time. "I was only aiming to finish, not even thinking about winning," she laughed after the race. A competitive marathoner, Ogawa typically trains 20-30 km a day, but the area she usual trains in is relatively flat. "The sunshine was so strong," she said, "and once we went off the roads onto the trails it got so tough that I was pretty doubtful of finishing." Nevertheless, she gutted it out and beat runner-up Noriko Onodera by more than 15 minutes. "I'm pooped. The people who run the Summit course are unbelievable," she laughed again. "I have to do more strength training to get ready for it next year."

Translator's note: Summit Division women's 3rd place finisher Kiyoko Shirakawa was the top Japanese woman at this year's 24 Hour World Championships.

2010 Fuji Mountain Race - Top Finishers
click here for complete results
Summit Division Men
1. Shinya Takahashi - 2:53:00
2. Suguru Emoto - 2:53:53
3. Dai Matsumoto - 2:56:52

Summit Division Women
1. Yoshimi Hoshino - 3:18:41
2. Naomi Ochiai - 3:27:18
3. Kiyoko Shirakawa - 3:30:47

5th Stage Division Men
1. Satoshi Kato - 1:19:57
2. Hiro Tonegawa - 1:26:01
3. Yoichi Nakanishi - 1:26:06

5th Stage Division Women
1. Mina Ogawa - 1:33:54
2. Noriko Onodera - 1:49:08
3. Keiko Nagasaka - 1:50:38

Comments

Anonymous said…
This race is BRUTAL!! 2006 I missed the 4:30 cutoff by the slimmest of margins, 2007 went back and finished with less than 2 1/2 minutes to spare. Was think about 2011, but with the rule change???
Chris Pavey said…
Thinking about doing this race in 2011. I'm keen to find out how many Australian's have completred this race before and what times in. There doesn't seem to be any race results in English? Not sure if you could be of help Brett?

cheers

Chris
JA3 said…
Darn, really disappointed to hear about the rule change, I'm living in Japan for a short time and I'd been looking forward to attempting this race in 2011.

I guess I'll still do the 5th stage race and cross my fingers that I can make it back to try the summit race within the qualification timeframe...
Anonymous said…
Hi
Planning on flying to Japan and running Fuji with my brother. Nothing on the English web site mentions the requirement of qualifying by completing 5th station race. Maybe it doesn't apply to overseas applicants?
Brett Larner said…
Sorry, I don't know whether the rule applies to overseas entries.

Most-Read This Week

Weekend Racing Roundup

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km.  Naoki Inoue  won the 16th r

Japan's Olympic Marathon Team Meets the Press

With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao

Takeuchi Wins Niigata Half in Boston Tune-Up

Running in cold, windy and rainy conditions, Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Software) warmed up for April's Boston Marathon with a win at Wednesday's Niigata Half Marathon . Takeuchi sat behind Nittai University duo Susumu Yamazaki and Ryuga Ishikawa in the early stages, then made a series of pushes to pick up the pace. Each time he tucked in behind whoever went to the front, while behind them others dropped off. Before 15 km only Yamazaki and Riki Koike of Soka University were left, and when Takeuchi went to the front the last time after 15 km only Koike followed. By 16 he was gone too, leaving Takeuchi to solo it in to the win in 1:03:13 with a 17-second negative split. "This was my last fitness check before the Boston Marathon next month, and my time was right on-target," he said post-race. "Everything went as planned. I'm looking forward to racing some of the world's best in Boston, and my goal there is to place in the single digits." Just back from tr