Skip to main content

Noguchi Back in Japan After First 40 km Run Post-Beijing

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20111214-OHT1T00280.htm
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20111214/t10014642411000.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

Click here for video of Noguchi training in Boulder and of her arrival at Kansai International Airport.

Athens Olympics women's marathon gold medalist and national record holder Mizuki Noguchi (33, Team Sysmex), arrived back in Japan at Kansai International Airport on Dec. 14 after training at 1600 m elevation in Boulder, Colorado.  As she prepares to make a comeback to the marathon at the Jan. 29 Osaka International Women's Marathon in a bid to make the London Olympic team, she declared herself fully fit and recovered.  "Everything has gone according to plan," she said.  "It was really cold [in Boulder], but Osaka is in January so I think it was good mental training for the race.

Noguchi left Japan on Nov. 1, and apart from a 15 km race in Holland she has spent the whole month and a half since then in intensive training.  She appeared bright and cheerful upon her return.  In Boulder, for the first time since the August, 2008 left leg injury that kept her out of the Beijing Olympics, Noguchi did a 40 km training run, completing the distance twice.  "For the first time since I got injured I finished a 40 km run," she told reporters.  "My rhythm was good over the distance, and the thigh concerns I had up until the summer while running were fine.  When I ran these longer distances my form was back to what it used to be and my footstrike has straightened out again."  After reconfirming her condition, she will decide whether or not to run Sunday's National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships in Sendai.

Noguchi will return to Boulder on Dec. 23 to carry out her final preparations for Osaka, her first marathon in over four years.  "In the last month of training I want to raise my spirit.  From now the goal becomes bringing things to a peak," she said.  "Along with distance, speed will become important."  Noguchi now enters the final stretch of her comeback road to an Olympic ticket.

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Japan Post Holds Off Sekisui Kagaku to Win Queens Ekiden National Title

  Japan Post  was back on top at the Queens Ekiden corporate women's national championships Sunday in Sendai, holding off last year's winner Sekisui Kagaku  over the second half of a race that came as close as 1 second to take 1st with a final margin of victory of 27 seconds. Sekisui Kagaku was out fast with a win on the 7.0 km opening leg by Erika Tanoura  and a new CR for the 12:56 second leg by Yuma Yamamoto , 17 seconds better than her own CR from last year. Last year's 4th-placer Shiseido  briefly led on the 10.6 km third leg with an excellent 33:17 stage win from Rino Goshima , but behind her Japan Post's Ririka Hironaka  returned from her latest injury problems to pass Sekisui Kagaku's Sayaka Sato  and hand off 6 seconds ahead. New recruit Caroline Kariba  ran Shiseido down on the 3.6 km fourth leg and put Japan Post 22 seconds ahead of Sekisui Kagaku, but a duel of marathoners between JP's  Ayuko Suzuki  and Sekisui's Hitomi Niiy...

Saku Chosei H.S. Makes It 2 In a Row - National High School Ekiden Boys' Race

While the girls' race was a blowout by 2022 champ Nagano Higashi H.S. , the boys' race at Sunday's National High School Ekiden was a tense battle of turnover that saw all of the final top four teams take a stab at leading. 2023 3rd-placer Yachiyo Shoin H.S. handled the first 2 of the 7 stages in the 42.195 km race, with lead runner Rui Suzuki delivering a bold run on the 10.0 km First Stage that produced the fastest-ever time by a Japanese runner on the stage, 28:43, and put Yachiyo Shoin 29 seconds out front. Last year's Fifth Stage CR breaker Tetsu Suzuki ran Yachiyo Shoin down to put 2023 champ Saku Chosei H.S. into 1st on the 8.1075 km Third Stage, but Genta Sugano of last year's 8th-placer Sendai Ikuei H.S. had other plans and took the lead on the 8.0875 km Fourth Stage. Smiling and fist pumping to the crowd almost the entire way, Taketo Tsukada of last year's 6th-placer Omuta H.S. moved up from 3rd to 1st by 2 seconds over Saku Chosei on the 3.0 k...

Nagano Higashi Girls Lead Start to Finish to Win National High School Ekiden

2022 National High School Ekiden girls' champion Nagano Higashi H.S. was back in force after a 5th-place finish last year, leading start to finish to win this year's national title Sunday in Kyoto. Lead runner Airi Mashiba kicked it off with a 19:30 stage win on the 6.0 km opening leg, something that head coach Fumio Yokouchi said later that he hadn't been expecting. That ended up being Nagano Higashi's only individual stage win in the 5-leg, 21.0975 km race, but the rest of its team ran well enough to hold a lead that was never less than 11 seconds but never more than 21. Last year's 4th-placer Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. spent most of the race in 2nd, but over the second half of the race Sendai Ikuei H.S. , 2nd last year by just 1 second, came from further back to run Kunei down on the anchor stage thanks in big part to a critical stage win on the 4th leg by Tsubomi Tezuka that put anchor Aoi Hosokawa in position to catch Kunei's Mizuki Oda . Nagano Higashi ...