Skip to main content

"Where Runners With the Highest Ambitions Come Together" - Fujiwara in Iten Ahead of Tokyo Marathon

text and photos by Tsukasa Kawarai
translated and edited by Brett Larner

2012 London Olympian Arata Fujiwara (Miki House) has had some of his greatest races at the Tokyo Marathon, finishing 2nd three times: an explosive 2:08:40 breakthrough there in 2008, 2:12:34 in sleet and strong wind in 2010, and his 2:07:48 PB in 2012 to make the London team. He has also done some of his worst marathons there, running 2:29:21 in 2011, dropping out in 2013, 2:30:58 in 2014, 2:19:40 in 2015 and 2:20:23 last year. The blindfolded-shot-in-the-dark quality of Fujiwara’s history in Tokyo has always made him unpredictable but entertaining. In preparation for this year’s Tokyo Marathon Fujiwara trained in Kenya for nearly two months. Tsukasa Kawarai spent time at Fujiwara’s training camp in January, and ahead of Sunday’s race he wrote a report for JRN on what he saw of Fujiwara’s preparations.


Starting in mid-December last year Arata Fujiwara trained in Iten, Kenya for about two months. It was his second time to train in Iten, his goal this time to build up a solid base in preparation for the Tokyo Marathon. Fujiwara injured his knee in June last year while training for the Gold Coast Airport Marathon. The injury that kept him from doing the kind of running he wanted for several months, but he came to Iten to make a full recovery from that setback.

It takes several weeks to adapt to high altitude training at 2400 m. Being the dry season it hardly ever rained in Iten, meaning very dry conditions. In the rough terrain around Iten, a passing car leaves you completely covered with dust. Amid this kind of tough environment, Fujiwara worked hard alongside the Kenyans.


In Iten Fujiwara chose locals Edwin Kiprop and Benerd Koech, a different athlete from Tokyo Marathon invited elite Bernard Koech, as his training partners. He ran together with them and in a larger training group during interval workouts at Kamariny Stadium and for long runs.


I accompanied Fujiwara to Kamariny Stadium for a high-quality interval session of 600 m x 15 led by Kenyan runners. With weeks of that kind of training behind him in Iten he looked to me like the Fujiwara of old, when he was in his best shape.


Fujiwara wasn’t the only one training at Kamariny Stadium. Many Olympians regularly do tough workouts there, a daily fact of life that makes Iten “The Home of Champions.” At the same time that Fujiwara was doing his interval workout, Wilson Kipsang was also training with a group in prep for Tokyo. Paul Chelimo was there from the U.S.A. too with a group of his own. “This is where runners with the highest ambitions from here and abroad come together,” Fujiwara said.

After the workout Fujiwara chatted with Kipsang. They both ran the London Olympics marathon. Both of them will run the Tokyo Marathon deadly focused on making this year’s London World Championships. To run again in the city of London.

The Tokyo Marathon has changed its course this year to what is being called a “high-speed course.” The late-stage hills of the old course are gone, and the expectation is that people will be slowing down less in the second half. With highly-developed racing intuition born from long experience I expect to see Fujiwara run an aggressive race and a long-overdue sub-2:10.


text and photos © 2017 Tsukasa Kawarai
all rights reserved

Comments

TokyoRacer said…
You've got to give him a lot of credit for consistently working hard and aiming high. I hope he has a good race.

Most-Read This Week

Ninja Runner Yuka Ando Leads Japanese Women's Marathon Team in London: "I Want to Go For It"

Her form has been dubbed "ninja running." Both arms held straight down with almost no movement. That idiosyncratic style carried Yuka Ando , 23, to the fastest-ever marathon debut by a Japanese woman, 2:21:36, at March's Nagoya Women's Marathon to land at #4 on the all-time Japanese lists. All at once Ando found herself catapulted to the top level of women's marathoning, a candidate for Japan's next great marathoner. When she was younger Ando ran moving her arms like other runners, but she had a bad habit of moving robotically, her upper body and lower body not working in sync. The turning point came in 2014 when she joined Suzuki Hamamatsu AC . Working there with coach Masayuki Satouchi to eliminate the faults in her form, the pair arrived at the ninja running style that let her run relaxed. "Other people keep asking me, "Isn't it hard to run like that?" but for me it's comfortable," she said. The efficient form helped her mai

Yamaguchi 10th at United Airlines NYC Half - Weekend Overseas Results

2024 national cross-country champion Tomonori Yamaguchi was the top Japanese finisher in the men's race at the United Airlines NYC Half , taking 10th in 1:04:36. A 2nd-year at Waseda University , Yamaguchi was one of three collegiate runners running New York in the 11th year of JRN's development program collaboration between the Ageo City Half Marathon and the New York Road Runners, a program that has seen people like future half marathon and marathon NR breaker Yuta Shitara and Paris Olympic team member Akira Akasaki make their international debuts. Yamaguchi's Waseda teammate Taishi Ito started fast, going with the leaders through 5 km in 14:29 before losing touch. Hosei University senior Rei Matsunaga went through in 14:42 in his last race before joining the JR Higashi Nihon corporate team in April. Yamaguchi, who caught COVID after winning last month's National Cross-Country Championships, started more conservatively with a 15:11 first 5km. But where both Ito

Rui Aoki Wins National University Men's Half Marathon - Weekend Results

Yuka Ando 's win at the Nagoya Women's Marathon was the big news of the weekend, but there were other high-level races happening, even in Nagoya. Held in parallel with the marathon, the Nagoya City Half Marathon saw Australians Natalie Rule and Ed Goddard take easy wins by about 2.5 minutes each, Rule in 1:13:57 and Goddard in 1:04:01. The new Biwako Marathon also had a non-Japanese winner, China's Yousheng Guan scoring 1st in 2:14:58 with Japan's Hirohito Sugai next in 2:16:40. Mikiko Ota won the women's race in 2:50:44. The Shizuoka Marathon returned for its first running in five years, with club runner Shumpei Oda leading the top 7 men under 2:20 in 2:15:36. Women's winner Remi Tanaka ran 2:41:23, beating runner-up Ayumi Sano by exactly 7 minutes. And in Tokyo, Rui Aoki continued what has been a great season so far for Koku Gakuin University with a win at the National University Men's Half Marathon . Aoki and Hiro Konda of Chuo Gakuin Unive