Sorry for not posting much this week, but I've been on the set of a TV commercial shoot the last few days. The cast of the commercial included celebrities Atsushi Ito and Hiroshi Neko, marathon legends Shigeru Soh, Akemi Masuda and Erick Wainaina, Olympic and World Championships bronze medalist sprinter Shingo Suetsugu, two-time World Championships bronze medalist hurdler Dai Tamesue, famed marathon coach Yoshio Koide, three-time Japanese national duathlon champion Yuya Fukaura, a World Championships race walker whose name I didn't catch, several Hakone Ekiden runners, my training partner Jason Lawrence, me, a few others, and several hundred extras. If it becomes available on YouTube I'll post a link.
Having scored its 3rd-straight Hakone Ekiden win this past January, Aoyama Gakuin University spent the Golden Week spring holidays training on the Myoko Plateau in Niigata from May 2-6. Along with the champion men's ekiden team, the first 2 members of AGU's new women's long distance team Nodoka Ashida and Kairi Ikeno , and AGU alumni and 2026 New Year Ekiden champion GMO team members Yuya Yoshida and Asahi Kuroda also took part in the training camp. Depending on the day's training schedule, mileage at the camp was over 50 km a day. AGU men's captain Kaito Nakamura confidently said, "This Golden Week training camp is where we lay the foundations for our 4th-straight Hakone title." A lot of people spend Golden Week on vacation, but the AGU ekiden team spent their time working hard on Myoko's rolling land amid the sprouting leaves of spring. On the 2nd day of the camp, May 3, team members woke up at 5:00 a.m. to do their warmup. The team assembled a...
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