For better or worse every teenaged boy who runs in Japan is thinking about Hakone, but only a handful will ever get the chance of that dream coming true. Eiji Kobayashi was one of the many who dedicated themselves to this dream but fell short, a member of Josai University's ekiden squad during the school's rise following its hiring of former Waseda University aces Jun Hiratsuka and Seiji Kushibe as coaches. Now a high school coach in Tokyo, Kobayashi looked back on his training and motivations with JRN.
Tell me about your background.
I was born in Nagano and moved to Saitama when I was a kid. In junior high school I played soccer and baseball but I wasn't any good, so when I was an 8th grader I tried the ekiden team. I did pretty well so I decided to stick with that.
For high school I went to Tokyo Hozen H.S. Right when I entered, Shoji Urabe, who had been captain at Chuo University, became the coach. Hozen was one of the strongest high schools in Kanto but Urabe kept trying to raise the team's level. Coming in when a new coach was taking over it was hard because of all the changes. My first two years the practices weren't so organized, more individual, but I got injured a lot anyway. When I ran the Chiba International XC Meet for the first time I was 15. I got so badly injured that I couldn't run for three or four months after that because my body wasn't ready yet. By the time I got to my third year I could only really run well from about August to November. But, I wanted to take my own running to the next level so I went on to Josai.
What was your training like at Hozen?
Some of our basic workouts were:
- intervals on the track 3-4 times a week
- 3000-2000-2000-1000 m repeats on grass with the 3000 m in around 9 min and 10 min recovery between each repeat
- a 20 km trail run at Mt. Takao twice a month
- 2000 m x 5 with 400 m recovery
Was that periodized to match your yearly racing schedule?
Yeah, this was the training gearing us up for the National High School Track and Field Championships in August. Starting in April, the beginning of the school year, there were the Tokyo Inter-High School Championships, then the Kanto High School Regionals, then Nationals in August. We were focused on everything from 800 m to 5000 m.
In summer training included more long runs around 20 km alternating days with some of the workouts I mentioned. In July there was a two week break for summer holidays, followed by two different gashuku, our intensive training camps. The first gashuku was a week long in Fukushima and was only the Hozen runners. The second one, also a week long, was in Yamagata and was a joint camp with other schools from Tochigi and Yamagata.
Tell me what the typical daily schedule was like for those gashuku.
Sure. In Fukushima we did about 30-35 km a day at about 800 m elevation. We would get up at 5:00 a.m. every morning for an 8 km trail run, 4 km up and 4 km down, starting at 5:30 a.m. After the run we had to cook our own breakfast, then we had break time to do laundry or take a nap or whatever. At 10:30 we had a 4 km uphill time trial, then at 12:30 it was lunch time.
After lunch we had a break until 3:00 when it was time for the main workout of the day. This was either 25 km on the road or another 4 km uphill time trial followed by a 10 km run to an onsen hot spring where we could relax a while before taking a bus back to camp. If it was a double time trial we were expected to do the morning one in about 17:30 and the afternoon one in about 16:50. In either case if you were more than 19 minutes behind the first runner the coach would yell at you in front of everyone. That really helped for motivation.
At 7:00 we had dinner, then at 8:00 there was a team meeting where everybody had to take a turn talking about their performance that day, then coach would talk for about an hour. After that it was bedtime, but it was usually pretty hard to sleep because there were a lot of bugs and, being a bunch of high school boys, it could get rowdy. If we were being too noisy coach would come and yell at us again. Once the team captain threw salt at all of us to get us to shut up.
The camp in Yamagata with other high schools was at about 1000 m elevation. It worked out to about 50 km a day. If you were serious you got up at 4:30 a.m. to warmup. The guys from Tochigi were all really strong and got up then no matter what. The slackers would get up at 5:00 but if you did that it usually meant you didn't do well in the morning workout. I roomed with Ryuji Komano who later almost got the 5th stage record in the 2008 Hakone Ekiden. He liked to sleep in but he could get away with it and still run well.
The morning workout started at 5:30 a.m. and was usually a 20 km buildup starting at 4 min pace and working down to 3:20. Breakfast was after that at 8:00 but it was usually hard to eat much because we were so tired. If we didn't eat coach would come and yell at us until we ate more. Then we had time for onsen, massage, icing, sleeping or whatever, plus a designated 90 minute period for studying kanji and doing homework.
Lunch was at 12:30, then at 2:30 we'd start warming up for the afternoon workout at 3:00. This could be something like 12 km followed by 1000 m x 5, or a 20 km pace run with the first 4 km at 4:30 pace and the rest at 3:20 pace. After the workout it was onsen time again, then at 7:00 we had dinner. This was the best part of the day but a lot of people had trouble eating again and it was pretty common to see guys crying because they couldn't make themselves eat anything. The day wound up with a general meeting at 8:00, then it was free time until bed. The older students, who had learned about massage technique by then, would give everyone massages and teach the younger students how to do it. Sometimes there were university guys around too. That's how I found out about Josai. They were just on the way up at that point, but I saw them training and was impressed and decided that that's where I wanted to go.
Let's talk about Josai.
Well, since I was usually injured in high school I was pretty weak going into Josai and didn't do much my first year. Most of my best runs, all my PBs, came my second and third years there. The training is pretty hard year-round. It depends a bit on the school, but usually university runners don't study. The university wants them to run, so they don't have to go to class and they are free to train and race whenever and wherever the coach wants them to. High school students have to pass university entrance exams so they have to study more, but not much more.
The school year starts in April with track season, which runs through June. First there's the Kanto Regional University Track and Field Championships in mid-May, then the National University Ekiden Yosenkai Qualifiers, a set of four 10000 m track races, in June. At the end of the month we go for 5000 m or 10000 m PBs at Nittai or one of the other university time trial series.
Here are some of Josai's training schedules for this part of the year. [Click to enlarge.]
As you can see, we have key workouts two or three times a week split into groups depending on people's condition and what they were training for. On the days in between you can train on your own. On top of this we meet really early every morning for a group jog. That's normal in a gashuku but not during regular training. A guy from Waseda once asked me if we really do that, because he couldn't believe it. On the morning jogs somebody is assigned to be leader and the group has to run at his pace. Sometimes someone would lose patience and take off, but guys like that usually fell apart at afternoon practice.
Training for Hakone starts in July. We have a test race to see who's who and to pick 20 guys for the summer gashuku, then start preparation. In late July and into August we have a one week gashuku in Nagano followed by a one week holiday when most people would go home. After that there is a three week gashuku up in Hokkaido. After that we have a time trial from the gashuku people and others who might have been too injured to go, and from that the coaches would pick 20 guys for the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai Qualifer in October. This time trial was one race, and the top 20 would be picked. Everyone was always tired from the Hokkaido gashuku and it was hard to run a good time. The 20 guys who made it would then go off to Nagano for another week-long gashuku. Track Nationals were also mixed in there, so we were also doing more speedwork than in the summer.
How did your training in these gashuku differ from the ones in high school?
It was higher volume and faster, basically. The A-squad guys were training three times a day and the injured and B-squad guys twice a day. The A-team would do an early morning jog, the main workout late morning, and another hard workout in the afternoon. The guys on the lighter schedule would do walking in the early morning and only one of the hard workouts.
Looking at the main morning workouts, they followed a day-to-day rotation like this:
- 1000 m x 7, building from 3:05 to 2:55
- easy day
- 10 miles
- easy day
- 2000 m x 4
- 30 km
- easy day
- easy day
- 3000-2000-1000 m sets with the 3000 m starting at 3:05 pace
- easy day
- 30 km
- easy day
- easy day
- 5000 m x 2
- easy day
- 30 km in 1:48 to 1:52
- easy day
For the rest of us, here's what our typical weeks looked like in September and October. [Click to enlarge.]
Things would really get started in October with road time trials every week on the National University Ekiden course to decide the team for that. The Ekiden was two weeks after the Hakone Yosenkai, and two weeks later was the Ageo City Half Marathon where the coaches make the first choices for the Hakone lineup. It was really a lot of stress for the regulars on the A-squad, and by this point we usually weren't talking to each other anymore. Everything came down to being one of the guys who didn't get injured because they were the ones who usually made it through to the Hakone squad, so in October and November everybody was looking at each other out of the corners of their eyes and thinking, "How come he's running so well and I'm not?" This was the point when people weren't really thinking about Hakone any more, just being in the top two or three in every workout. Only the lower-level guys could afford to think about Hakone. The B-team wasn't really part of any of this and were off at a gashuku in Chiba for the month.
After Ageo and the other races the top 20 guys were more or less selected for the Hakone squad. There was always some change in the lineup after the initial announcement, like half of them, as some people come on stronger later in the season and others burned out too early or got injured. A gashuku in December settled the final list of 20, and that was when most people tried to peak. It's really hard for them to peak in time to guarantee that they will be chosen and then maintain that fitness until Jan. 2nd and 3rd. The guys who aren't picked go for 5000 m or 10000 m PBs again at Nittai or Toyo University's time trials while the Hakone guys are doing their final training, then it's Hakone. Most of the other universities have the same basic schedule from August through Hakone.
Is there some down-time after Hakone?
We have about a week off, then people do prep for the XC and half-marathon season from mid-January through the end of March. Lots of people are injured at this point so it's pretty personal in terms of what you do. Generally lower mileage, lots of running on the grass, and some track work to start getting ready for track season in April. A track 10 miler was a standard workout at this point of the year. Here's a training schedule from February. [Click to enlarge.]
For the people who were in good shape and going for a half-marathon, Josai had a one week gashuku in Chiba. The menu was like this:
- 1st day: 20 km road
- 2nd day: 30 km road in 2:05 (I almost walked near the end when I did this)
- 3rd day: 100 m x 60 on the beach
- 4th day: tons of uphill/downhills reps on sand dunes at the beach
- 5th day: 20 km road
Like I said, I was pretty weak going in as a first-year because I was injured so much in high school. From September my first year through May my second year I was injured and undergoing rehabilitation. The summer my second year went really well and that fall I ran PBs for 5000 m, 10000 m and half-marathon. I thought I was going to have a chance at making Hakone that season. Then in December I got a sports hernia while running a track 5000 m at Tokai University. At Ageo in late November I had PB'd, then a week before Tokai I had run a 10000 m PB. I felt great and was on a roll, so I did hard speedwork all week after the 10000 m. At Tokai I ran the first 4000 m at 71 sec/lap, on pace for a good PB. Somewhere between there and 4600 m I got the hernia. My last lap was in around 90 seconds and I finished in 15:08. I had to get surgery and of course I missed Hakone. After that it was a constant struggle with injury, recovery and reinjury cycles for the next two years and I just could never get on top of it.
After I left Josai I got a job as an assistant coach back at Tokyo Hozen H.S., but the two main coaches there were in some kind of power struggle and always fighting. I was in the middle. It didn't last long. I found another position at a high school out in Chiba and love it. I've had two guys go on to Josai and hope that sooner or later one of my runners will do what I couldn't and make it into the Hakone Ekiden.
© 2010 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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