JULY 2015

LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD

JULY

• But first, a few leftovers from June. Dennis Schultz ran the Hamburg Hella Half Marathon in 1:27:32, placing 108th out of 6,424 finishers. Yukari Murahara completed Japan’s most famous Ultra, the Saromako 100km, in 12:09:04. And Yaeko Kubota ran the Zermatt Marathon in Switzerland, climbing 2,585m in 28-degree heat!
• On the 4th, Eric Lebrasseur continued his trail racing, at the Kitatanzawa Adventure Race (36km), timing 3:37:57 for 77th out of 2,072.
• On the same day, Satohi Numasawa ran the Utsukushigahara Trail Race (14km), recording 1:56:34 as the second female – well done!
• The Cabbage Marathon 10K was held in Tsumagoi on the 12th, and Derek Leong finished 12th in his age group in 44:52. Yoshie Niitsuma also ran in it. It bills itself as the No. 1 Hard Race!
• The extremely popular Obuse Half Marathon was on the 18th, and was not quite as hot as usual. Teruyuki Minegishi’s time was 1:31:20, followed by Padraig MacColgain in 1:31:36, David Rubenstein in 1:34:04 and Chika Kanai in 1:36:05. Alan Cannon and Mika Kume also ran the race.
• Another race for crazy people was the Nozawa Onsen Mountain Trail on the 18th. This was 65km, 4,100m of ascent, partly through a narrow, muddy track forcing you to crawl on hands and knees up a mountain, partly in unshaded 34-degree temperatures, etc. Lawrence Schneck was there and “enjoyed” 10 hours of running to finish in 39th position. Oh, and you need poison remover for when the wasps sting
• Namban Rengo was well represented at the famous race up Mt. Fuji.  Completing the 21km course to the top were Eric Lebrasseur – 3:46:51/274 out of 1,244, Yuichi Kanamori – 4:06:13/551 and Rie Onodera – 4:23:44/998. Yuki Seshimo did the 5th station course in 2:38:58/912 and Derek Leong unfortunately had to drop out at the 6th station due to a calf injury.
• And finally, the above crazy race x 2, the Sky View Ultra Trail — 120km, 9,000m elevation gain, 4 mountains, narrow trails, brutal heat, heavy rain, slippery bamboo underfoot, clouds of flies, and more hardships – what fun! Chih Liew was up to it, however, finishing with no feeling in his feet the last 20km in 26 hours 1 min, 37 sec!!!

AUGUST

Wednesday night workouts are at Oda Field track from 7:30pm.

• 5 – 1000 x 6
• 12 – 1000 800 1000 800 1000 800 400
• 19 – 400 x 12 or 10 or 8 (groups of 8-10 people, a different person leads each one for the first 200, longer rest after half)
• 26 – 5000m time trial

HAIKU OF THE MONTH

August — Now I know
Why runners in Singapore
Run at 5 AM.