Announcing JRNPremium Interview Series

Beginning in Feb., 2010, Japan Running News will introduce its new JRNPremium monthly subscription series of original in-depth and personal interviews with Japanese and Japan-based distance runners, coaches and others involved in the Japanese long-distance running industry. Get a look into a previously-closed world as you read about training, life as a professional jitsugyodan athlete or as a runner in the toughest university system in the world, and the personal sides of those who until now may have been little more than a name next to a time, if even that. You won't find interviews with most of these people anywhere else. In the first half of 2010 JRNPremium will feature original interviews with:

• Arata Fujiwara, the man who came from nowhere with a 2:08:40 at the 2008 Tokyo Marathon, crashed and burned at the 2009 World Championships, and dreams of doing things his own way.


• Takeyuki Nakayama, anger-fueled former 10000 m and marathon national record holder, twice 4th in the Olympic marathon, both a vocal opponent of the Japanese system and its greatest anti-hero.


• Kiyoko Shimahara, a veteran with top-5 finishes in Boston and Chicago who last fall came back from a three-year slump with three sub-2:30's in less than four months and now hopes for the Boston crown.


• Stephen Mayaka, the first Kenyan high school runner in Japan and now the head coach of a Japanese university team and mentor to Samuel Wanjiru, Martin Mathathi, Gideon Ngatuny and others.


• Eiji Kobayashi, a young high school coach who like thousands of others sacrificed his own high school and university years for the dream of Hakone Ekiden glory.

JRNPremium will deliver subscribers from eight to ten interviews a year. For an example of the high quality of the content you can expect, take a look at the interview with World Championships and 2:08 marathoner Takayuki Nishida published last summer on the JRN main site and Kiwi runner Jason Lawrence's account of training with Josai University's Hakone Ekiden squad at their summer training base.

$30 U.S. gets you access to the complete 2010 set of JRNPremium interviews, with individual interviews available for $6 each. To subscribe please click here.