Skip to main content

Kawauchi Satisfied With "Heavy Training" at Mt. Zhao

http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20130714/ath13071416510002-n1.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

Moscow World Championships men's marathon team member Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't.) talked to the media July 14 at his training camp at Mt. Zhao, Yamagata, his face showing satisfaction as he told reporters, "I've gotten good training done here where it's cool.  [The heat in] Saitama is unbelievable right now."

At 900 m altitude the mid-afternoon temperatures scarcely reach 25 degrees, making for good conditions for running.  On the 14th, just a week after running 2:10:01 to win Australia's Gold Coast Airport Marathon, Kawauchi completed 30 km on an undulating 2.5 km cross-country course.  "You could say my body was a bit heavy, so I wanted to see how much it could take," he said.

Kawauchi has been doing summer training at Mt. Zhao since his days at Kasukabe Higashi H.S. and Gakushuin University, always heading straight to a hot spring post-workout to soak away his fatigue.  "I love it here," he said.  "It makes me strong."  Other members of the Moscow team are doing extended training camps overseas and in remote locations within Japan, but in order not to impact his full-time job Kawauchi has made use of the long weekend to do three straight days of concentrated training.  "Every day here I'm doing high-density heavy training," he said of the camp's effectiveness.

In order to peak properly for the World Championships marathon on August 17, Kawauchi said, "There's only one path to follow from now to the final stages.  I have to prioritize making adjustments as I go."  He plans to run two more races to help sharpen his racing sense ahead of his second-straight World Championships, the July 21 Shibetsu Half Marathon and the July 28 Kushiro Shitsugen 30 km Road Race.

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Saku Chosei H.S. Makes It 2 In a Row - National High School Ekiden Boys' Race

While the girls' race was a blowout by 2022 champ Nagano Higashi H.S. , the boys' race at Sunday's National High School Ekiden was a tense battle of turnover that saw all of the final top four teams take a stab at leading. 2023 3rd-placer Yachiyo Shoin H.S. handled the first 2 of the 7 stages in the 42.195 km race, with lead runner Rui Suzuki delivering a bold run on the 10.0 km First Stage that produced the fastest-ever time by a Japanese runner on the stage, 28:43, and put Yachiyo Shoin 29 seconds out front. Last year's Fifth Stage CR breaker Tetsu Suzuki ran Yachiyo Shoin down to put 2023 champ Saku Chosei H.S. into 1st on the 8.1075 km Third Stage, but Genta Sugano of last year's 8th-placer Sendai Ikuei H.S. had other plans and took the lead on the 8.0875 km Fourth Stage. Smiling and fist pumping to the crowd almost the entire way, Taketo Tsukada of last year's 6th-placer Omuta H.S. moved up from 3rd to 1st by 2 seconds over Saku Chosei on the 3.0 k...

Nagano Higashi Girls Lead Start to Finish to Win National High School Ekiden

2022 National High School Ekiden girls' champion Nagano Higashi H.S. was back in force after a 5th-place finish last year, leading start to finish to win this year's national title Sunday in Kyoto. Lead runner Airi Mashiba kicked it off with a 19:30 stage win on the 6.0 km opening leg, something that head coach Fumio Yokouchi said later that he hadn't been expecting. That ended up being Nagano Higashi's only individual stage win in the 5-leg, 21.0975 km race, but the rest of its team ran well enough to hold a lead that was never less than 11 seconds but never more than 21. Last year's 4th-placer Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. spent most of the race in 2nd, but over the second half of the race Sendai Ikuei H.S. , 2nd last year by just 1 second, came from further back to run Kunei down on the anchor stage thanks in big part to a critical stage win on the 4th leg by Tsubomi Tezuka that put anchor Aoi Hosokawa in position to catch Kunei's Mizuki Oda . Nagano Higashi ...

Japan Post Holds Off Sekisui Kagaku to Win Queens Ekiden National Title

  Japan Post  was back on top at the Queens Ekiden corporate women's national championships Sunday in Sendai, holding off last year's winner Sekisui Kagaku  over the second half of a race that came as close as 1 second to take 1st with a final margin of victory of 27 seconds. Sekisui Kagaku was out fast with a win on the 7.0 km opening leg by Erika Tanoura  and a new CR for the 12:56 second leg by Yuma Yamamoto , 17 seconds better than her own CR from last year. Last year's 4th-placer Shiseido  briefly led on the 10.6 km third leg with an excellent 33:17 stage win from Rino Goshima , but behind her Japan Post's Ririka Hironaka  returned from her latest injury problems to pass Sekisui Kagaku's Sayaka Sato  and hand off 6 seconds ahead. New recruit Caroline Kariba  ran Shiseido down on the 3.6 km fourth leg and put Japan Post 22 seconds ahead of Sekisui Kagaku, but a duel of marathoners between JP's  Ayuko Suzuki  and Sekisui's Hitomi Niiy...