Skip to main content

Getting a Late Start at Age 25 - Minami Yamanouchi

Back in 2010 JRN spotted 17-year-old high school student Minami Yamanouchi at a local 14 km road race in northern Ibaraki, where she beat the high school boys' course record by more than four minutes. At the time we wrote, "If Yamanouchi keeps running post-high school and lands at the right team, university or pro, we may have been lucky to see the first appearance of a future great." Now 25 and coached by former half marathon national record holder Atsushi Sato at the Kyocera corporate team, in the last few weeks Yamanouchi has really come into her own.

Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera) took the top Japanese spot at 4th overall in the 5000 m at the April 28 Oda Memorial Meet in Hiroshima, one of the top-level track meets in Japan. A former amateur runner, she only joined the corporate leagues last August. Seeing her progress in less than a year of serious training, her coach Atsushi Sato, the 6th placer in the 2009 World Championships marathon, called her "exceptional." Getting a late start in her development at age 25, Yamanouchi says, "My ultimate goal is to go back to the marathon."

At the Oda Memorial Meet the field in her race included tough competition like London World Championships marathoner Yuka Ando (Suzuki Hamamatsu) and Valencia World Half Marathon Championships team member Yuka Hori (Panasonic). Her better-known competitors dropped out of the lead group one by one, but the unknown Yamanouchi was there til the end. Her finishing time was 15:21.31, a quality mark that would have landed her 3rd at last year's National Championships and qualified her for London.

Born in Fukushima, in junior high school she took part in the National Junior High School Championships. She initially enrolled in a high school but quit without ever going, instead earning her high school diploma by correspondence from Koriyama Hosei H.S. Without access to a track team she trained on her own. running a 2:47:41 marathon at age 18. After graduating she received offers from corporate teams, but, she said, "I hate strictness so I turned them all down." Getting a job with a paid membership amateur running club she chose the route of an amateur so that she could enjoy her running. But, suffering from repeated injuries during that time, she says, "It ended up not being much fun."

After quitting the club and recovering from her injuries Yamanouchi thought to herself, "Let's try running in the corporate leagues." After rejection after rejection, she finally sent a letter of appeal to Sato, a fellow native of Fukushima. Sato initially turned her down as well, but when she ran a strong PB in a track time trial off almost no training he saw her potential and admitted her to the Kyocera team.

Despite the enthusiasm she had expressed in her letter to him Yamanouchi initially struggled with her self-control, arriving at Kyocera 7-8 kg overweight and suffering a stress fracture in her left foot right away in the autumn. As a result she couldn't run for five months, and her actual training as a corporate leaguer began only three months ago. With that kind of short lead-up behind her she more than delivered at the Oda Memorial Meet.

In the May 5 Golden Games in Nobeoka women's 5000 m she was again the top Japanese placer, finishing 3rd overall. Despite her sudden leap to the top level of Japanese women's track Yamanouchi doesn't intend to run in this summer's Jakarta Asian Games, saying, "It's all happened so fast that I haven't had time to think. At any rate there's the National Championships and ekiden season." Yamanouchi may talk small, but her potential looks to be anything but.

source article:
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20180509-00000046-mai-spo
translated by Brett Larner
Labels:

Comments

Metts said…
A 2:47 at age 18, another Japanese exceptional semi-amateur athlete like the others mentioned here before.
May 11, 2018 at 12:30 PM
Chris said…
With that kind of talent and injury record, she sounds like a female Kenenisa Bekele.
May 12, 2018 at 2:34 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Nagoya Women's Marathon Preview and Streaming (updated)

Japan's winter marathon season of 6 major races in 7-straight weekends wraps up Sunday with the world's largest women-only marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon . The weather is looking pretty good, 6˚ at the start rising to 10˚ by the finish and sunny skies, but a moderate 7 m/s NW wind means a headwind finish that might impact the potential for some fast times. Official streaming kicks off at 9:00 a.m. local time. Live results will be here . Sheila Chepkirui won last year in 2:20:40, breaking away from Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba at 30 km and hanging on for the win. Sato negative split a 2:20:59 PB for 2nd, Chumba fading to 3rd in 2:21:36. All 3 are back this time, but they have pretty serious competition from Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023. And of course, Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda . Maeda ran 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024 to make the Paris Oly...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chepkirui Over Sato Again to Win 2nd-Straight Nagoya Women's Marathon, Chen Breaks Malaysian NR (updated)

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...
2 comments
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
53 comments
Read more