Skip to main content

Terumi Asoshina Returns from Retirement to a New Career in the Marathon With Team Toyota Shatai

http://www.chunichi.co.jp/chuspo/article/sports/news/CK2008050302008460.html

translated by Brett Larner

A great new hope joined Team Toyota Shatai in April. Holding a spot in the Japanese women`s 10000 m all-time top 10 is Terumi Asoshina (25). Asoshina grabbed attention as a hope for the future when she won the 2005 All-Japan Jitsugyodan Half Marathon, but an imbalance in her form resulted in a general weakening of condition and loss of motivation which forced her to quit Team Kyocera in February last year. Despite losing her passion at the time, Asoshina explains, "I decided I didn`t want to quit running just because I wasn`t enjoying it." After a period of rest and renewal, she found a chance for a new start with the Ominami twins at Team Toyota Shatai. Planning a career in the marathon, Asoshina has once again found joy in running and is aiming for a rebirth. "I`m truly grateful. My running isn`t finished yet, but still, to get another chance to enter a team....."

Asoshina has long been hailed as one of the next generation of world-class long-distance runners. She won the All-Japan Jitsugyodan Half Marathon in March `05, then in April the same year she clocked a mark of 31:23.55 to join the all-time top 10 Japanese women in the 10000 m. However, in her debut marathon in the following January`s Osaka International Women`s Marathon, she was poorly prepared and dropped out partway through the race. Since then something has been out of gear in her running. "For some reason," she says, "I stopped being able to put my full weight on my left leg. It didn`t hurt, but my balance always being off made practice really draining."

Asoshina knew something was wrong but couldn`t identify the source and compensated by training with crazed focus and intensity. At the 2006 National Track and Field Championships her performances were disappointingly slow. She began to worry that she was going astray. Bit by bit Asoshina lost the feeling that running had any value in her life. In February 2007 she quit Team Kyocera and returned home to her parents` house in Kumamoto. "I thought that if I got away for a while I might be able to get myself back together," said Asoshina, but being home wasn`t what she hoped. Training alone, she put on 6 kg. Gradually Asoshina found that although she had been serious about her retirement, the sound of her true feelings was beginning to come through. "I didn`t want to quit running just because I wasn`t enjoying it. Quitting would be easy, but if I did it this way I`d always regret it."

After a one year blank in her life, Asoshina found understanding intervention in the person of the Ominami sisters, who introduced her to their team Toyota Shatai. She is now working to restore her delicate sense of balance. Team Toyota Shatai coach Masahiko Takahashi commented, "She`s very talented. Her running will come back." Asoshina now practices in Aichi. If she can smoothly handle her coach`s training menu she will try running in the team`s time trials in June and July. "Right now I`m content, but I`d like to try again sometime in the marathon." From the depths of burnout, Asoshina found new value in running. Her "second running life" will now continue on until the goal.

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Fukuoka International Marathon Elite Field

The Dec. 1 Fukuoka International Marathon is the first of this winter season's big selection races for the home soil team for next year's Tokyo World Championships, and the domestic field is a great one. Kenya Sonota , 2:05:59 in Tokyo last year, and 2:06 men Yusuke Nishiyama , Yuya Yoshida , Kazuya Nishiyama and Daisuke Doi make up the main contenders to get a spot, with internationals Lemeck Too , Jie He , Bethwel Yegon , Vincent Raimoi , last year's winner Michael Githae , and Shaohui Yang perfectly positioned to add momentum to the shot at the 2:06:30 Worlds standard that they'll all be taking. 8 other Japanese men in the 2:07 to 2:09 range make it one of the most competitive Fukuoka editions in a long, long time. Last year Githae outkicked Yang by 1 second to win 2:07:08 to 2:07:09, Yang with a Chinese NR that was broken a few months later by He in Wuxi. Chinese men's marathoning has momentum right now too, and it wouldn't be surprising to see either He

Koku Gakuin Wins National University Ekiden for First Time in Anchor Stage Turnaround

Last month's Izumo Ekiden season opener was unusually action-packed with turnovers in the lead on every stage and a dramatic showdown between anchors Kotaro Shinohara (Komazawa Univ,), Aoi Ota (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) and Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Koku Gakuin Univ.). All three schools were expected to be up front again at today's National University Men's Ekiden , and race-morning lineup changes unexpectedly put Shinohara, Ota and Hirabayashi against each other again on the 2nd-to-last stage of the day. Komazawa was immediately in trouble when its first two runners Kosuke Shimako and Shunsuke Kuwata tanked, falling to 16th. AGU was out front after two of the eight legs, with Hibiki Yoshida from Izumo 4th-placer Soka University giving him a run for it and both just missing the 2nd leg CR. AGU led the rest of the way, with a 33:03 CR for the 11.8 km 4th leg by Asahi Kuroda giving it a lead of almost 1:30 that it took another CR from KGU's Ayumu Yamamoto to cut back down

It's Koku Gakuin's Year - National University Ekiden Preview and Streaming

Komazawa University is trying to line up its fifth-straight National University Men's Ekiden win this Sunday, but after a runner-up finish to Koku Gakuin University last month at the Izumo Ekiden it's got a tough road ahead with two extra stages and a longer average stage length to deal with. TV Asahi has the live broadcast starting at 7:45 a.m. local time, with official streaming on TVer and unofficial streaming on mov3.co . Izumo was an unusually close and exciting race between Komazawa, KGU and Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University that saw the lead change every stage. All three teams were within a few seconds of each other at the start of the anchor stage, where Osaka Marathon winner Kiyoto Hirabayashi of KGU dropped Hakone First Stage winner Kotaro Shinohara from Komazawa and Third Stage winner Aoi Ota of AGU to take the win. KGU looks like the favorite here too, its top-8 10000 m average of 28:16.61 the class of the field and giving it a solid advantage ov