This weekend I visited Shimoda four hours south of Tokyo to interview Yoshihisa Hosaka about his background and training for his 60+ world record at the Feb. 1 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon. I’ve worked at various times with a range of well-known musicians, artists, dancers, athletes and biologists and can honestly say that Hosaka is the most interesting person I have ever met. The interview will appear in the June issue of Running Times magazine, available April 28.
We're back from a short summer break. A week and a half out from the first race of the season's four World Marathon Majors races, here's a look at Japanese athletes scheduled to run. Everything right now is about qualifying for the MGC Race, the official trials race for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics to be held in the fall of 2027 in Nagoya. The JAAF makes no mistake about wanting to keep its top people racing domestically where it can get a share of revenue from the TV broadcast and race operations, so anyone who decides to race overseas has to do it in a WA platinum label race and hit either 2:06:30 or 2:23:30, regardless of place, course or weather if they want to make the trials. At the same time concessions are make for domestic races, like for example the late-August Hokkaido Marathon where up to 3 men and 3 women can qualify if they go 2:12:00 or 2:32:00. As a result, you get things like last year where amateur runner Yudai Fukuda made the trials by finishing 3rd Jap...
Comments