From the Sidelines to 6th in Sydney - Meet Masato Arao

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/PhotoRun, all rights reserved

Last weekend's Sydney Marathon featured one breakthrough performance that was kind of low in the mix. Running his first marathon outside Japan, 25-year-old Masato Arao negative split a 2:07:42 PB, moving up fast over the last 10 km to pass Eliud Kipchoge and finish 6th. With the Sydney course estimated to be about 2 minutes slow with tough hills in the early going, that meant Arao's run was about equal in quality to all-time Japanese #5, the only better marathon by a Japanese man outside Japan being Yohei Ikeda's 2:05:12 for 6th in Berlin last fall. It was a pretty amazing breakthrough for someone who never made his college team's starting varsity lineup and a year ago was working full-time in his hometown and running for fun.

Born and raised way up north in Yamagata, Arao showed a bit of promise at Sakata Minami H.S., running the First Stage at the National High School Ekiden his first year in 2016 and making the National High School Track and Field Championships his second year in 2017. That was enough to get him scouted by Toyo University, a perpetual Hakone Ekiden podium finisher that had produced people like former half marathon and marathon NR holder Yuta Shitara and Tokyo Olympics marathoner Yuma Hattori.

But during his senior year of high school Arao was hit by a car while out running, giving him injuries that took years to recover from. He spent most of his time at Toyo dealing with that, and although he made the alternate list his senior year, in four years he never made Toyo's starting team for any of the Big Three university ekidens, Izumo, Nationals, and Hakone. In NCAA terms that would be never making his school's starting varsity lineup, not even once. His 5000 m PB stayed his 14:23.36 from high school, and his biggest achievement at Toyo was a 28:50.40 track 10000 m at the Heisei University Time Trials meet the fall of his senior year in 2022.

"Arao was a student in the Faculty of Science and Engineering, so compared to other students in the Humanities he had a lot less time for training and care," Toyo University head coach Toshiyuki Sakai told JRN before Sydney. "He had problems with his ankle and other injuries, and he didn't do well in speed training. But when we did longer runs his natural abilities started to shine through the longer it went. His senior year he improved a lot and made our entry list for the Hakone Ekiden, but he didn't quite get to the point of making the starting roster."

With that kind of record Arao didn't have any post-grad corporate team offers and moved back home to Yamagata after graduating in 2023. Thanks to his engineering degree he got a job with the Marutaka Corporation construction company and kept up with his running on his own in his free time. He ran his marathon debut in Tokyo last year, taking 3rd in the general division in 2:17:55. That fall he had his first real breakthrough, cutting over a minute and a half off his Toyo-era half marathon PB with a 1:02:53 for 2nd at the Ichinoseki International Half Marathon in Iwate. His high school-era coach Ryo Abe told the Hochi Newspaper, "Even though he's working full time he's getting up early and getting his 30 km runs in. When there's a lot of snow in the winter he goes and runs along the coast where it doesn't snow as much."

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/PhotoRun, all rights reserved

A few weeks later Arao was a DNF after 35 km at the Kobe Marathon after trying to run 2:12 pace, but even so his Ichinoseki time was enough to get the attention of Kiyohiro Watanabe, the head coach at the Yamagata-based ND Software, a second-tier corporate team most notable for the presence of 2024 London Marathon winner Alexander Mutiso. Arao joined ND Software in January this year, and just a few weeks later his next big breakthrough came with a 1:30:50 win at the very hilly Ome 30 km Road Race in the mountains west of Tokyo, a win that saw him hammer home the last 8 km. "The last 2 years really helped me become independent and learn to monitor my condition and create the right training menu," Arao told Hochi. "That time as an amateur wasn't a waste."

Two weeks after Ome he was back on the starting line in Tokyo, this time in the elite division. Still with a 1:02:53 half marathon best from Ichinoseki, Arao went through halfway in the fourth group in 1:02:58, holding on well enough to hit 30 km in 1:29:37. It didn't last, but Arao still finished 18th overall in 2:08:05, beating the likes of 2:05:59 man Kenya Sonota and Budapest World Championships bronze medalist Leul Gebresilase.

I got involved with him at that point, and after some conversation with coach Watanabe and Arao we set it up for him to pace July's Gold Coast Marathon through 30 km in 3:01/km in prep for his international debut at the Sydney Marathon on August 31. In the meantime he ran 1:02:55 for 11th at May's Sendai International Half Marathon, finishing 8 seconds up on Shitara. At Gold Coast he ran right according to schedule, taking them through 30 km in 1:30:39 and setting up Yuki Takei for a CR win in 2:07:33. If you saw any video of Arao at that race you could see he was a diamond in the rough, his relative lack of development in college meaning he was still soft-looking, but with a smooth and powerful stride that said he had a lot more in him.

Gold Coast was Arao's first time outside Japan, the perfect test drive for him to get used to a long flight, unfamiliar food and a new environment for an important race. Thanks to that he was completely unstressed by the experience in Sydney, where the plan, a similar pace to Gold Coast and a bit of caution in the first 15 km, should set him up to run down a lot of people who were faster on paper but hit the early hills too hard. If it went right we figured he'd get into the top 10 late in the race.

photo © 2025 Michael Young/Sydney Marathon, all rights reserved

And he executed that pretty much perfectly, careful early, hitting the tangents, never more than a minute behind the lead group, 1:03:59 through halfway, 14th at 25 km in 1:15:41, 11th at 30 km in 1:30:34 when 2nd group pacer Isaac Heyne stepped off, and then negative splitting his way up to 6th in 2:07:42. "I wasn't sure it really happened, but running next to Kipchoge for a while was a once-in-a-lifetime experience," Arao said post-race. "A year ago I'd never have believed it." It was really one of the best Japanese men's marathon performances ever, at the very least for races outside Japan. And of course, since it was outside Japan the JAAF won't count it for 2028 Olympic trials qualification because he didn't break 2:06:30, no consideration at all given to placing or competitive level of the race.

Given that Sydney has about a 2-minute handicap it's pretty likely we'll see Arao run at least mid-2:05 next time out the gate, so ultimately it won't really matter relative to him being at the Olympic Trials. But when the JAAF prioritizes keeping Japanese athletes in domestic races where it has a vested financial interest and only cares about how fast they run in the Majors, not whether they show actual competitive ability, it's not exactly a surprise that they haven't had a male Olympic medalist in 33 years, or a female one in 21 years. When you could hypothetically win a World Marathon Major in 2:06:31 and not qualify for the Olympic Trials but someone else could run 2:11:59 for 3rd in a domestic marathon the same day and qualify, as actually happened, your system is not primarily designed to produce the best Olympic team possible.

No matter how well someone does there's always a feeling of "If only it had been a little bit more." In this case it was Arao finishing 4 seconds behind 5th-placer Edward Cheserek in Sydney. King Ches, winner of 17 NCAA national titles at the University of Oregon, one of the best-ever athletes to go through the American collegiate system. How incredible would it have been to see a guy who never made even a single varsity race in college run him down at the end? But, let's not get greedy. Arao's Sydney breakthrough was an underdog's dream come true. Just because you didn't make it in college, just because a pro contract didn't come your way, it doesn't mean you're done. No one knows what life is going to bring.

Sydney was a run that put Arao at the very top of current Japanese men's marathoning. And after he gets his PB and Olympic Trials qualification sorted out it'll be exciting to see how he can build on his Sydney debut somewhere like Boston. "This result proves to me that I'm doing things the right way," he said after the race. "If I can do this while training through the Japanese summer heat then I'm really excited for my next marathon this winter."

last photo and text © 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved