Skip to main content

Shibui Leaves for Arizona Training Camp

http://sports.nikkei.co.jp/index.aspx?n=SSXKG0108%2030052009
http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/news/f-sp-tp0-20090530-500774.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

Shibui in Narita Airport on May 30. Click photo for full-sized version.

Berlin World Championships women's marathon team leader Yoko Shibui (Team Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) left from Tokyo's Narita Airport on May 30 for the United States. She is first scheduled to attend an event in New York, then on June 2 will travel to a training camp in Flagstaff, Arizona.

At the beginning of April Shibui injured her left thigh while doing high-altitude training in Kunming, China, forcing her to miss the spring track season. "This was the worst injury I've had since I first started running, and even I was surprised," Shibui told reporters at Narita. On May 29 she ran 30 km, her longest run since winning January's Osaka International Women's Marathon. "I'm back to normal now. It doesn't hurt any more and I'm looking forward to this camp," she said, putting a good face on her recovery.

In Flagstaff Shibui will be training at 2100 m elevation, but amid concerns about Shibui's tendency to overwork her coach Shigeharu Watanabe says, "[Reiko] Tosa pulling out of the Beijing Olympics served as a lesson for us. We want to be more careful this time" in planning her workouts.

The training camp is scheduled to last for one month. Shibui intends to return to Japan at the end of June. She then plans to run the July 5 Sapporo International Half Marathon as a rehearsal for August's World Championships.
Labels:

Comments

dennis said…
Is there any news on Mizhuho Nasukawa? She ran really well in Tokyo beating Shimahara, and OMminami. How come she didn't run any track races?
June 1, 2009 at 12:58 PM
Brett Larner said…
In her victory interview in Tokyo Nasukawa said she wants to run the 5000 in Berlin, not the marathon, so I expect that's what she's up to right now and we'll see her at Nationals later this month.

But I agree, her run in Tokyo deserved more attention than it got and I can't really believe either that Rikuren didn't consider it either even though it wasn't part of the designated system.
June 1, 2009 at 4:34 PM
Brett Larner said…
Her PB is 15:23 but her best time within the qualifying window is 15:45, so no, no B-standard.
June 2, 2009 at 1:03 AM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...
8 comments
Read more

Kipyegon Repeats, Toyo Wins Hakone Ekiden Qualifier in First Appearance in 21 Years

Back for the first time in 21 years after a disastrous 14th-place finish at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January, Toyo University hit one out of western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with a solid win at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon that serves as the official qualifying race for the 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The top 10 teams in the Hakone auto-qualify for the following year, with the rest having to run the Yosenkai in October with a squad of 10 to 16 runners out of which the top 10 score on aggregate time, with the 10 fastest schools joining the Hakone field and top individuals from non-qualifying teams names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team to make up the complete Hakone field of 21. Driven in large part by an aggressive run from 3rd-year Yu Miyazaki , one of only 2 Japanese athletes to go with the big African contingent up front, Toyo won in 10:31:30, 1:03:09 or 2:59.6/km per athlete. As the first team to have broken the 3:00/km average pace barrie...
1 comment
Read more

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...
2 comments
Read more