What a shoe nerd can give back to the team

RRC member interview

Text: Shun Sato

A+ Team (target: sub-2 hours 50 minutes) Annual MVP: Shusho Arimoto

Endurance improvement efforts

For the 2023-2024 season, I was thinking about improving my endurance, which has been an issue for me. At the official record meet in April 2023, I was able to run 1500m in 4 minutes 48 seconds, but my personal best of 3 hours 19 minutes was clearly an endurance issue according to the VDOT chart. To address this issue, I did several 150-minute jogs during the summer, and ran the Hokkaido Marathon to avoid slacking off, building up my training over the summer.

Gain confidence through Nagasoe training

I don't like the heat, so I decided to start the marathon season in November, and in the period leading up to the season, I focused on short-distance training and distance running at around race pace. However, while I can manage short-distance training alone, I struggle with distance running alone.

Tsukuba: Everything is in the air

I started participating in Nagasoe training around October, hoping to improve my quality at distance running, which I'm not very good at. With the help of group running at Nagasoe training, I was able to do high-quality training for three consecutive weeks: 30km at 4 minutes 20 seconds per kilometer, 21km the following week at 4 minutes 5 seconds per kilometer, and 30km the week after that at 4 minutes 10 seconds per kilometer. This gave me a certain level of confidence, which led to me running the Bando Masakado Half Marathon in November in exactly 81 minutes, and the Tsukuba Marathon in under 2 hours 52 minutes (PB). The fact that the temperature was in the single digits and there was light rain on both days meant that I was in excellent condition personally was a big factor.

A difficult second half of the season

However, the rest of the season was quite a struggle. My initial goal was to break 2:55 in the end-of-season race and be able to run in Category 2 at Beppu-Oita, but I achieved that goal by the end of 2023. I revised my initial goal of 2:55 to 2:50 for the race. Since I wasn't able to fully practice running the full marathon at 4 min/km, the remaining races (Beppu-Oita, Osaka) were all or nothing, but I started at a sub-4 min/km pace and tried to hang in there as long as I could. At Beppu-Oita, I started to slow down after 30 km, finishing in the 2:55 range. At Osaka, I started in Block B, so I ran too aggressively in the early stages, which led to pain in my hip and forced me to withdraw. Learning from these two races, I want to prepare this year so I don't struggle in the second half of the season.

As a shoe advisor

Looking back, I ran all of my 2023-2024 full marathons in different shoes. (Hokkaido: Asics Metaspeed Edge+, Tsukuba: NIKE Vaporfly Next%3, Beppu: Anta C202 5GT PRO, Osaka: Xtep 160X 5.0 PRO) While functional clothing is becoming more common these days, shoes are the ultimate tool for determining running performance. With that in mind, I wondered what shoes would suit me best, and as I researched them, I naturally became more knowledgeable about shoes. Recently, I've been sharing my shoe-geek knowledge with team members by offering advice like, "Maybe these shoes would work for you?" When I offer advice, I take into account the shoe specs, the individual's target time, and their running style, among other factors, and suggest two or three pairs that seem like a good fit. It's personally incredibly rewarding to receive thanks from team members who improve their personal bests wearing the shoes I recommended. Improving their personal bests is the result of their hard work, and it was my teammates who ultimately chose and wore the shoes I recommended, so my contribution to them is minimal.

Surpassing Makino

I have many goals for the 2024-2025 season, but for now I would like to surpass the personal best of a certain Makino, who, despite appearing as a pacer at various training sessions and interacting with people from various communities, still specifically mentions me, saying, "I don't want to lose to him."