Tosa, Ogata and Sato to Run Apr. 20 Pre-Olympic Marathon on Beijing Course; Noguchi, Nakamura and Osaki Also Beginning Olympic Preparations
translated and edited by Brett Larner; source article links below
The six members of Japan's Beijing Olympic marathon team gathered at the National Training Center on Mar. 26 for a press conference to discuss their preparation for the main event. First and foremost, women's team member Reiko Tosa (Team Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) and men's team members Tsuyoshi Ogata and Atsushi Sato (both Team Chugoku Denryoku) will be running in the "Good Luck Beijing" Pre-Olympic Marathon over the official Olympic course on April 20. The runners' coaches Yasushi Sakaguchi and Hideo Suzuki stressed that this run will only be for the purpose of testing out the Beijing course and will not be at race effort, likely at 3:30 per km pace for the men. The course has a gross elevation difference of only 8 m and is thus quite flat, but the concrete used in Beijing's roads is reputed to be very hard. This combined with the high humidity likely in late summer suggests a high probability of blistering being a factor in the Olympic race. Representatives of the runners' shoe makers said that they would make adjustments to the Olympians' race shoes based on their reports from the test run.
Tosa said that she has not been practicing well and will be happy just to be on the starting line. After the Pre-Olympic Marathon she will travel to Boulder, Colorado for altitude training followed by final training in Kunming, China. Tosa has not trained in Boulder since the breakthrough early years of her marathon career and hopes that returning there now will help her to recover the condition she has lost since last summer's World Championships.
Ogata said that the theme of his training is running comfortably. After the Pre-Olympic Marathon he will run in the Hyogo Relay Carnival on April 27 and the Oda Memorial Track Meet on April 29. In June and July he will train at camps in Hokkaido. His Chugoku Denryoku teammate Atsushi Sato, the fastest man on the team with a 2:07:13 in Fukuoka last December, said that he is visualizing winning in Beijing during all his training. Following the Pre-Olympic Marathon he will return to his hometown of Fukushima and train there through May. His plans for June and July are not yet fixed, but he will not be training with Ogata. The two runners' coach Yasushi Sakaguchi said that the most important thing is for Ogata and Sato to avoid overworking each other, and thus they will be training separately and doing workouts which they find suitable for themselves.
Novice women's team member Yurika Nakamura (Team Tenmaya) expressed some nervousness over her first Olympic appearance. She will focus on improving her speed in the lead-up to Beijing, spending April at Team Tenmaya's training camp in Albuquerque, New Mexico before returning to Japan for the Hyogo Relay Carnival. Beyond that, Nakamura said she would continue in the same vein of training which led her to a successful victory in her debut at last month's Nagoya International Women's Marathon.
The third men's team member, Satoshi Osaki (Team NTT Nishi Nihon) also believes that he must focus on his speed to have a chance against Kenyan athletes in the Olympics. Like Nakamura, he is bypassing the Pre-Olympic Marathon to focus on speedwork during April on May. He plans to run the 10000 m at the Hyogo Relay Carnival, then beginning in June will head to Hokkaido for marathon training.
Defending women's marathon gold medalist Mizuki Noguchi (Team Sysmex) downplayed a recent health scare involving a rash she picked up while training in Kunming, saying that she had just completed a two-day medical check without problems. She will spend April training in Miyazaki, Kumamoto Prefecture in preparation for the Sendai International Half Marathon in May. After Sendai she will move her training base to Sugadaira Koban in Nagano Prefecture for a final round of altitude training. She told members of the press that she believes her coach has put together a good race plan for Beijing and that she is really excited to get down to the main part of her training.
Before leaving for Miyazaki, Noguchi stopped in Kobe to visit Asics' grandmaster shoe craftsman Hitoshi Mimura to be fitted for the handmade shoes she will use in Beijing. The basic design of the shoes will be the same as the "rice husk" shoes she wore in her course-record victory at last November's Tokyo International Women's Marathon, but will be gold in color to reflect Noguchi's status as defending champion. After fitting Noguchi, Mimura told her that her left hip and right knee are somewhat weak and that she needs to focus on strengthening these areas during her upcoming training.
source articles:
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/olympic/2008/news/track/marathon/news/20080331-OYT1T00574.htm
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/olympic/2008/news/track/marathon/news/20080326-OYT1T00903.htm
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20080319-00000937-san-spo
http://www.jiji.com/jc/zc?k=200803/2008031901149
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20080320-00000066-san-spo
http://beijing2008.nikkansports.com/athletics/p-sp-tp0-20080330-342023.html
http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/news/20080402-OHT1T00091.htm
http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/beijing2008/athletics/news/20080403-OHT1T00193.htm
The six members of Japan's Beijing Olympic marathon team gathered at the National Training Center on Mar. 26 for a press conference to discuss their preparation for the main event. First and foremost, women's team member Reiko Tosa (Team Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) and men's team members Tsuyoshi Ogata and Atsushi Sato (both Team Chugoku Denryoku) will be running in the "Good Luck Beijing" Pre-Olympic Marathon over the official Olympic course on April 20. The runners' coaches Yasushi Sakaguchi and Hideo Suzuki stressed that this run will only be for the purpose of testing out the Beijing course and will not be at race effort, likely at 3:30 per km pace for the men. The course has a gross elevation difference of only 8 m and is thus quite flat, but the concrete used in Beijing's roads is reputed to be very hard. This combined with the high humidity likely in late summer suggests a high probability of blistering being a factor in the Olympic race. Representatives of the runners' shoe makers said that they would make adjustments to the Olympians' race shoes based on their reports from the test run.
Tosa said that she has not been practicing well and will be happy just to be on the starting line. After the Pre-Olympic Marathon she will travel to Boulder, Colorado for altitude training followed by final training in Kunming, China. Tosa has not trained in Boulder since the breakthrough early years of her marathon career and hopes that returning there now will help her to recover the condition she has lost since last summer's World Championships.
Ogata said that the theme of his training is running comfortably. After the Pre-Olympic Marathon he will run in the Hyogo Relay Carnival on April 27 and the Oda Memorial Track Meet on April 29. In June and July he will train at camps in Hokkaido. His Chugoku Denryoku teammate Atsushi Sato, the fastest man on the team with a 2:07:13 in Fukuoka last December, said that he is visualizing winning in Beijing during all his training. Following the Pre-Olympic Marathon he will return to his hometown of Fukushima and train there through May. His plans for June and July are not yet fixed, but he will not be training with Ogata. The two runners' coach Yasushi Sakaguchi said that the most important thing is for Ogata and Sato to avoid overworking each other, and thus they will be training separately and doing workouts which they find suitable for themselves.
Novice women's team member Yurika Nakamura (Team Tenmaya) expressed some nervousness over her first Olympic appearance. She will focus on improving her speed in the lead-up to Beijing, spending April at Team Tenmaya's training camp in Albuquerque, New Mexico before returning to Japan for the Hyogo Relay Carnival. Beyond that, Nakamura said she would continue in the same vein of training which led her to a successful victory in her debut at last month's Nagoya International Women's Marathon.
The third men's team member, Satoshi Osaki (Team NTT Nishi Nihon) also believes that he must focus on his speed to have a chance against Kenyan athletes in the Olympics. Like Nakamura, he is bypassing the Pre-Olympic Marathon to focus on speedwork during April on May. He plans to run the 10000 m at the Hyogo Relay Carnival, then beginning in June will head to Hokkaido for marathon training.
Defending women's marathon gold medalist Mizuki Noguchi (Team Sysmex) downplayed a recent health scare involving a rash she picked up while training in Kunming, saying that she had just completed a two-day medical check without problems. She will spend April training in Miyazaki, Kumamoto Prefecture in preparation for the Sendai International Half Marathon in May. After Sendai she will move her training base to Sugadaira Koban in Nagano Prefecture for a final round of altitude training. She told members of the press that she believes her coach has put together a good race plan for Beijing and that she is really excited to get down to the main part of her training.
Before leaving for Miyazaki, Noguchi stopped in Kobe to visit Asics' grandmaster shoe craftsman Hitoshi Mimura to be fitted for the handmade shoes she will use in Beijing. The basic design of the shoes will be the same as the "rice husk" shoes she wore in her course-record victory at last November's Tokyo International Women's Marathon, but will be gold in color to reflect Noguchi's status as defending champion. After fitting Noguchi, Mimura told her that her left hip and right knee are somewhat weak and that she needs to focus on strengthening these areas during her upcoming training.
source articles:
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/olympic/2008/news/track/marathon/news/20080331-OYT1T00574.htm
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/olympic/2008/news/track/marathon/news/20080326-OYT1T00903.htm
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20080319-00000937-san-spo
http://www.jiji.com/jc/zc?k=200803/2008031901149
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20080320-00000066-san-spo
http://beijing2008.nikkansports.com/athletics/p-sp-tp0-20080330-342023.html
http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/news/20080402-OHT1T00091.htm
http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/beijing2008/athletics/news/20080403-OHT1T00193.htm
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