Team Nissin on the Track

by Brett Larner

Christmas came early this year.

For this morning`s Harriers practice we went over to Oda Field to do 4 x 5000 m with 5 min. recovery rather than training in Yoyogi Park as usual. Oda is the main public track in central Tokyo and there are usually some interesting people there working out. Today Keio University and Gakushuin University were both there along with a few high schools, clubs and individuals. One serious-looking woman I didn`t recognize was doing easy laps in a national team warmup uniform. About halfway through our workout one of the best professional teams in Japan, Nissin Shokuhin, showed up for some hard training.

Team Nissin includes some stellar talent on its roster. Toshinari Suwa is a 2:07 marathoner, was 6th in the Athens Olympics marathon and 7th in the Osaka World Championships marathon, and is a favorite to make the Beijing Olympics marathon team . Kazuyoshi Tokumoto was a legendary university runner and is considered one of the future stars of Japanese marathoning. Julius Gitahi ran the 5000 m for Kenya at the Sydney Olympics. Ngatuny Gideon was 4th at this year`s World Cross Country Championships. All of these runners plus the rest of Nissin`s squad and at least 4 coaches, several with video cameras, came to Oda Field. It seemed like a pretty serious day since the annual pro championship All-Japan Jitsugyodan Men`s Ekiden is just over 2 weeks away.

The team probably warmed up by running from Nissin`s headquarters in nearby Shinjuku, 15-20 min at a comfortable pace. After some easy individual strides, the 10 Japanese Nissin runners ran 3 x 2000 m with 400 m continuous recovery. Team captain Tokumoto led the first repeat in 70 seconds per lap, 2:55 / km pace, with the other members running single file behind. Suwa ran near the end of the line. The following two repeats were slightly faster, about 69 and 68 seconds per lap, making for about 2:50 / km pace on the final rep. After this the pack broke up and people did individual work.

While the Japanese team members were running together, Gideon ran his own workout. First he did 5 x 1000 m with 200 m continuous recovery. I heard a coach call off 2:43 for the first repeat; subsequent reps got faster, as low as 2:35. After a short recovery following the last rep, Gideon moved to 700 m repeats with 100 m recovery. I couldn`t clock or count these since I was still running but the pace seemed quite a bit faster. While he was doing his workout other people on the track were gradually forgetting their own as they stopped or slowed down to watch. A junior high school coach stopped filming her team to film Gideon. I heard many people admiring the pure beauty of his form.

After this part of the workout the Nissin team gathered together and seemed to be finished. Just before I left, though, Julius Gitahi appeared and started warming up, so it`s likely the team were in a rest period and were going to continue the workout. Nissin will run the All-Japan Jitsugyodan Men`s Ekiden on Jan. 1. Suwa will run the Biwako Mainichi Marathon in March to try to qualify for the Beijing Olympics.

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