With RETO's support, I can't run sloppily.

RRC member interview

Text: Shun Sato

7th Course A-1 Team (Goal: Sub-3) MVP Yosuke Furuyama

Chronic ankle pain

I was really happy with my PB time (3 hours, 8 minutes, 56 seconds) at the Tsukuba Marathon (laughs). I ran the Tokyo Marathon last March with a painful injury and suffered a crushing defeat, but I managed to hold on in Tsukuba.

When I was in high school, I was on the soccer team, and when I was shooting, I collided with an opposing defender and stretched the ligaments in my ankle. Since then, I've had chronic ankle pain. Before joining RETO, I was running about 100km a month, so it wasn't that painful, and even when it did hurt, it didn't affect me. But now, I'm running over 200km a month, and now that I'm in my 40s, the pain is getting harder to get rid of, even with treatment.

I can't run sloppily.

I've had this old injury examined by a doctor, but there's no cure, and the pain comes back when I increase the intensity or distance, so I tape it up tightly during key training sessions and races, and just manage to make it go away. In Tsukuba, my ankle started to hurt halfway through, but I managed to run a time that would allow me to improve my personal best, and I'm grateful for the support of everyone at RETO. I knew I couldn't run sloppily, and I was saved by the support of Ichi (Ichikawa Takahiro) running alongside me, and by the support of Kai (Katayama E) at the end, when we entered Tsukuba University.

A fateful encounter with RETO

I first encountered RETO one Monday night. On weekends, I have to take care of my kids, take lessons, and spend time with my family, so I can't practice properly (I can only jog for less than an hour), so I would do point practice by myself at Nijubashi Bridge on Monday nights. At the time, I was watching RETO's practice session and thought, "It's so lively, isn't it?" The Monday night practice session fit perfectly with my cycle, so I think it was fate (laughs).

Although I'm a shy person

Actually, I had attended various training sessions before. However, I'm quite shy, so I'd talk to people a little on the spot, but that was about it. But at RETO, all the members were easy to get along with from the start, and I was inspired by how hard they worked at both their work and running. Up until now, the cheering during races was just at the level of people I'd met at training sessions who happened to show up and cheered me on, but RETO has a big cheering squad, so I feel like I have to make sure to go to the cheering spots, and when they call my name, I get switched on, so I'm really grateful. I'm glad I was able to run and cheer with everyone like that, and to have met them all.

Family comes first on weekends

If I could be greedy, I would like to participate more in weekend practice sessions, training camps, and cheering events (wry smile). However, family comes first on weekends, so it's difficult to get approval from my family. I had a great time running the Tokyo Marathon the other day (and even beat my personal best), so I wanted to go to the after-party, but unfortunately I couldn't. I think runners with young children are in a similar situation, but I think that once my children get a little older, I'll be able to be a little more flexible about weekends.

Nature Party held

This January, we held a wine event instead of a training session, and it was a lot of fun. At a social gathering, Seiya and I got excited talking about how much we love natural wine, and that's what finally led us to hold the event. I love alcohol and drink it almost every day. I especially love wine; I could drink nothing but wine (laughs). RETO has a fairly large number of drinkers, and we have about three more establishments that we could rent out for private drinking, so I'd like to hold another "wine event" when the opportunity arises. I'm also planning to ask the establishments to serve alcohol other than wine, so that we can broaden the audience (laughs). Of course, I also managed to achieve my personal best marathon time this season (Tokyo Marathon: 3 hours, 6 minutes, 1 second), so next season I'll be training to aim for a sub-3 time.