Skip to main content

Yamada Denki Women's Team Nagano Training Camp in Pictures

all photos by Brett Larner

Two women from the Yamada Denki women's ekiden team, 2:28 marathoner Ayumi Nakayama and 1:10 half marathoner Maki Suzawa, will be running next month's Toronto Waterfront Marathon. Yamada Denki head coach Katsuaki Isobata invited JRN to attend Yamada Denki's altitude training camp in Sugadaira, Nagano the last weekend of August to watch some of Nakayama and Suzawa's training. Below are some photos of the weekend, primarily of a 30 km tempo run Nakayama did with accompaniment from several teammates. Click photos to enlarge.

The start point of Sugadaira's main road loop, a course of about 6.5 km in length at 1300 m elevation.
Nakayama, left, in singlet, on the first loop of her 30 km run paced by teammates Megumi Kanetomo and Aoi Miyaji. Coach Isobata follows in a car shouting out instructions and pace.

Nakayama is wearing pink Mimura brand shoes custom-made by master craftsman Hitoshi Mimura.
Miyaji takes a turn leading near the end of the first loop.
At 10 km Maiko Yamaguchi joins in and takes over pacing as Miyaji drops out to jog the rest of the loop.



The biggest uphill on the loop.


Kanetomo wraps up after two laps, leaving Yamaguchi to take Nakayama through the third lap.

Nakayama moves ahead halfway through the third lap.
Across town, the Athens Olympics Memorial Mizuki Noguchi Cross Country Course is another of the main workout sites for elites training in Sugadaira. The course consists of grassy loops of 500 m, 1 km, 2 km and 4 km in length with a start and finish at 1500 m and a maximum height on the 4 km loop near 1650 m.
An account of Mizuki Noguchi's gold medal run at the Athens Olympics on the side of the rock monument pictured above.
The start and finish point for the 1 km, 2 km and 4 km loops.
Another view of the start point.
Looking across the course up the side of the mountain.

(c) 2010 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

TokyoRacer said…
So what did she do the 30k in?

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