Skip to main content

Eri Okubo Leaving Second Wind AC

http://swac.jp/news.shtml
http://sw-ac.jugem.jp/?eid=2656

translated by Brett Larner
photo by Dr. Helmut Winter

Our sincerest thank you to all of Second Wind AC's regular supporters.  Our club athlete Eri Okubo has decided to leave Second Wind AC at the end of March. Following her departure from Second Wind AC she plans to continue to pursue her own personal goals in a new environment.  Okubo has posted a personal statement about her decision to leave on the Second Wind AC blog.  We hope that all of you will continue to support and encourage her as she follows her dream and thank each of you for the encouragement you have given up to now.

Okubo's statement:

Thank you to everyone who has helped me and supported me. Unfortunately, I dropped out of Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon.  Thank you to all of my regular fans and to everyone who came out to cheer along the course.  I am truly sorry that I was not able to live up to your expectations and that I ended up with a result like this.

I would also like to tell you all that the Nagoya Women's Marathon was my last race as a Second Wind AC athlete.  I am sorry to deliver this kind of abrupt news on top of a bad race result.  Running as a Second Wind athlete enriched my range of experience as a runner, and I learned that the marathon and running itself can be truly fun.

Looking at the path ahead of me it's still a blank page, but after a night's sleep after the race on Sunday my resolve and motivation to pursue my next goal are back strong as ever. Once I fully recover and am back to a level where I can run hard I want to get back to competing in some form or another.

Three years was a short time, but I sincerely want to thank everybody who offered their encouragement whenever they saw me and who supported me right from when I was starting out and had not yet accomplished anything.

Eri Okubo

photo (c) 2012 Dr. Helmut Winter
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

yuza said…
I am curious to know why she is leaving. Did the team ask her to leave, because she failed to meet expectations, or is she leaving because she believes she can do better without them?

I suppose it does not really matter.

Nagoya was a really good race, which had surprising depth with 15 women running under 2hrs 35mins.

Great run by Kizaki, but I am not sure how much faster she can run.

March 12, 2013 at 4:07 PM
Brett Larner said…
My impression from the tone is that this came from her side. She is the best athlete SWAC currently has so it doesn't seem likely she would be asked to leave on the basis of Nagoya.
March 13, 2013 at 7:22 AM
yuza said…
Fair enough. Perhaps she has been inspired by Kawauchi?
March 14, 2013 at 1:50 AM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Khishigsaikhan and Kuira Break Ageo City Half Marathon CRs (updated)

Stellar conditions and a solid fields meant times were going to be fast at the Ageo City Half Marathon , and in both the women's and men's races the front end took full advantage of the day. In the midst of the super-deep men's field Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh , the top Mongolian in this summer's Budapest World Championships marathon and in last month's Hangzhou Asian Games marathon, ran steady and strong, splitting 33:29 at 10 km, 1:10:38 pace, before pushing the 2nd half. Khishigsaikhan crossed the finish line 1:10:32, 1:22 under the old course record, 3:35 ahead of 2nd-place Kana Kobayashi , and a massive 4:16 off the Mongolian women's national record. Khishigsaikhan is currently training in Japan and ran Ageo in prep for next month's Taipei City Marathon, where she was 3rd last year. The men's race went out hard, with Kenyan Brian Kipyegon (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.), NR holder Yusuke Ogura (Yakult) and the ambitious Rei Matsunaga (Hosei) leading the ...
1 comment
Read more

A Few Words on Chicago

by Brett Larner photos by Dr. Helmut Winter Chicago comes at a tough time for Japan's corporate leagues, just before the start of the fall ekiden season's regional qualifiers.  Although just about every team has more than enough people to fill their lineups for these relatively minor events, head coaches will usually not let their better athletes do an October marathon, whether because of the limited recovery time in the event that they decide a big gun has to run in a qualifier, or because it would give them the hassle of explaining to the parent corporation why a star is off doing his or her own thing instead of being there for the team.  As a result you typically only see Japanese runners at Chicago when they are looking to drop something big, as with Yukiko Akaba  (Team Hokuren) and Yoshinori Oda  (Team Toyota) this year, or, like the block of  Japanese men at 2:12~2:13 , as part of a corporate federation junket for promising third-tier men to get the exp...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tanaka and Hashioka Win Gold - World U20 Championships Day Two Japanese Results

Working together to execute an aggressive frontrunning team strategy born from failure two years ago in Bydgoszcz , 2018 Asian U20 3000 m gold medalist Nozomi Tanaka and 2018 Asian Junior Cross Country gold medalist Yuna Wada opened a massive lead over the African Junior Cross Country medalist Ethiopian duo of Meselu Berhe and Tsige Gebreselama in the early going of the Tampere World U20 Championships women's 3000 m. Tanaka took the lead from the gun before Wada went out front at 200 m to set a fast pace. Through splits of 3:00 and 3:03 for the first 2000 m, Tanaka kicked hard from 300 m out to close with a 2:51 for Japan's first-ever gold medal in the event, winning in a PB of 8:54.01. Berhe and Gebreselama caught Wada on the back corner but weren't even close to matching Tanaka, taking 2nd and 3rd in PBs just under the 9-minute mark. Wada just held off Kenyan Jenali Jemutai Yego for 4th in 9:00.50, seeming happy in post-race interviews to have helped a teammate ...
Post a Comment
Read more