MGC Race Olympic Marathon Trials Qualifier - Reia Iwade

Reia Iwade

age: 24
sponsor: Under Armour
graduated from: Toyokawa H.S.

best time inside MGC window:
2:23:52, 5th, 2019 Nagoya Women’s Marathon

PB: 2:23:52, 5th, 2019 Nagoya Women’s Marathon

other PBs:
5000 m: 15:42.50 (2015) 10000 m: 32:13.21 (2015) half marathon: 1:09:45 (U20 NR, 2013)

marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019)
5th, 2019 Nagoya Women’s Marathon, 2:23:52 – PB
4th, 2018 Nagoya Women’s Marathon, 2:26:28
5th, 2017 Sendai International Marathon, 2:31:11

other major results:
1st, 2019 Osaka Half Marathon, 1:09:46
6th, 2018 Sendai International Half Marathon, 1:13:11
9th, 2017 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:10:35
4th, 2016 Berlin Marathon, 2:28:16
5th, 2016 Nagoya Women’s Marathon, 2:24:38
5th, 2016 National Corporate Half Marathon Championships, 1:10:53
7th, 2015 Nagoya Women’s Marathon, 2:29:16
3rd, 2015 National Corporate Half Marathon Championships, 1:10:13
3rd, 2014 Yokohama Women’s Marathon, 2:27:21
4th, 2013 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:09:45 – PB, U20 NR

Iwade was a teenage wunderkind, going straight from high school to a 1:09:45 half marathon U20 national record right after her 19th birthday in 2013 and on to a 2:27:21 marathon right before her 20th. Japanese women who excel that young rarely last, but in the years after that Iwade made progress, first as part of the Noritz corporate team and then as an independent sponsored by Under Armour.

At last year’s Nagoya Women’s Marathon Iwade qualified for the MGC Race with a 2:26:28 for 4th. This year she came out strong, winning the Osaka Half Marathon 1 second off her PB in 1:09:46 in January and then running the fastest Japanese women’s time of the year so far, a 2:23:52 PB, for 5th in Nagoya. Since then she has focused on training with male training partners, tweeting this week that her last 40 km training run before the MGC Race was the fastest she’d ever done, better than before Nagoya.

The only woman in the field operating outside the corporate team system, with everything seeming to line up perfectly Iwade has to be seen as one of the three heavy favorites to make the team come Sept. 15.

Next profile: Chihiro Miyawaki (Toyota).

© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
photo © 2016 Dr. Helmut Winter, all rights reserved