When I first met with Arthur Lydiard in person, it was at Seattle marathon in 1981. He conducted a clinic the night before the marathon. At Q&A session – I don’t even remember what the question was – he said something in the line of; “It is possible to bounce back from running a full marathon in a few weeks and run another marathon… In fact, if you screwed up with the first one, you may even run your best marathon in the second one; as long as you recover well…” Years later, talking with Dick Quax, the same topic came up. He said, “If you had a bad marathon; try to run another one in 5~6 weeks to about 2 months later. You may actually have a very good one…” Here, we are basically talking about stress and adaptation (Response Regulated™). You give yourself a big load of stress, such as running a marathon or doing a long run, then your body would go; “Wow! This is something I’m not used to… I’d better get stronger so I can handle such a stress…!!!” Anybody who has done “the last long run” 3~4 weeks before the marathon KNOWING why you’re doing it should understand what we’re talking about. It’s not simply doing a long run for the sake of doing a long run; you need to balance the program so your up-swing (adaptation and super-compensation) would come right on the marathon day. If it’s too close; you won’t be recovered. If it’s too far away, you’ll lose the training effect.
In the fall of 2003, the defending Olympic marathon champion, Naoko Takahashi, failed to win Tokyo Women’s Marathon in November, slowing down in the final 12km to be overtaken by Ethiopia’s Alemu (who would go on to finish 4th in Athens Olympic marathon). It appeared that she simply “ran out of gas”. I saw the picture a few days later and was surprised to see how skinny she was! These elite runners always walk on the fine line of hard training and over-training (Foundation’s own Dr. Dave Martin had a great slide, for his presentation, of an athlete walking on a fence, possibly tip over to either side any time). The late Kiyoshi Nakamura, coach of great Toshihiko Seko, used to say that it’s best to toe the start line of the marathon, being at 90% ready coming up, or feeling slightly heavy at the start. After about an hour and a half (somewhere at around 30~35k mark), you’ll be done with your warm-up and come up to 100% ready; THAT is the way to win the marathon. It seemed that Takahashi was “over-done” in her preparation. Even coach Koide later said that he was terrified to see how skinny she looked at the start (he came back from Boulder training camp ahead of Takahashi and missed the final stage of preparation). Nevertheless, her training had gone well and she was physically ready to run a good marathon. I had written to coach Koide that Takahashi should consider running Osaka 2 months later. Well, there was some conspiracy and they opted not to run another marathon. Takahashi missed the Olympic spot. The one who pushed Takahashi out of the team was Reiko Tosa with her gutsy come-from-behind win at Nagoya marathon in March.
Several years later, I couldn’t help but revisit this incidence when former Japanese record holder (2:06:51), Atsushi Fujita, tried to make Osaka world championships team by running Fukuoka marathon. He ran a 30km tempo run in the record time only 2 weeks before Fukuoka. Perhaps a bit too much of stress even for Fujita’s caliber. He sank to the 11th place with 2:11:50. Frustrated, he decided to run Beppu Oita marathon in the following February, mere 2 months later. He ended up winning it in 2:10:23.
Yoko Shibui, a teammate of Reiko Tosa, entered the final Tokyo Women’s Marathon last November. Her coach, Watanabe, told me that she concentrated more on fast 20k tempo runs this time. She also felt she was losing racing fitness too much while tapering so she continued to train relatively hard until very close to the marathon. She looked fit and sharp and took off in 16:22 for the opening 5k; continue the lead, almost all by herself, past 30k. In the drizzling rain, her lone pursuit of victory took her tool, she slowed down to 17:44 between 30k to 35k; finally overtaken by the eventual winner, Yoshimi Ozaki (2:23:30). Shibui faded to 4th place in 2:25:51. She is, without doubt, a very, very talented athlete (her other story here). Unfortunately, unlike her teammate, Tosa, she hadn’t seemed to be consistent in her performances. I remember watching her at Osaka Ladies Marathon in 2004, Olympic Trial race for Athens Olympics. Being a strategic race, it started out very slow… Shibui, being a speedster with the national 10,000m record of 30:47, was not so comfortable with “sitting in the pack”. Struggling to run slow, her legs got stiff and she faded to 6th place, missing the Olympic berth. Devastated and frustrated and crying her eyes out, Shibui claimed she never expected the race to go so slow and she completely lost her own rhythm.
My biggest concern was that, being a very emotional person, Shibui might get too frustrated that she might decide to “pack it up”. I sent coach Watanabe an e-mail, telling him that he’d have to be careful not to "drop her"; or he may never find another talent like her. Surprisingly, he replied and said Shibui is actually thinking about running either Osaka (January) or Nagoya (March), still trying to make the Japanese team for Berlin World Championships. Even more surprisingly, she picked Osaka in the end; only 69 days after Tokyo marathon. This is, except for the example of Fujita in 2007, quite unheard of in Japan. But the actual fact is; in olden days, runners were a bit more resilience. Take, for example, legendary marathon runner, the late Kokichi Tsuburaya, who won the bronze medal in 1964 Tokyo Olympic marathon behind Abebe Bikila. He ran his debut marathon in March of the Olympic year (1964) in 2:23. Merely 3 weeks later, he ran his second marathon in 2:18, which was the Olympic trial where he finished second to Kenji Kimihara who, at the time, was probably one of the best marathon runners in the world (he would go on to claim the silver medal in 1968 Mexico City Olympics). He went on to run another marathon as a preparation in August in 2:19 and 2 months after than was the Olympic marathon where he ran in 2:16. And, in at least 3 of these races, Kimihara also ran them as well.
At any rate, I wrote to coach Watanabe again last week and told him that I was very excited and looking forward to seeing how Shibui would perform in the upcoming Osaka marathon. I told him about the above stories and said, partly to give them confidence, she might just come right, assuming they did recovery in between right. He said that her condition was low for a while (after Tokyo) but then it really came back up and both her physical condition as well as her mental state is very much in high swing. I went as far to predict Shibui to win in 2:21.
The race started as a waiting game. In the race, they had Yukiko Akaba, Japan’s Olympic representative at Beijing in both 5,000 and 10,000m, running her debut marathon; as well as Yumiko Hara who crushed Shibui’s dream of making the Osaka World Championship team at 2006 Nagoya marathon. The race went on at around 17:10~17:25 per 5k pace with almost 20 runners bunching up together. It was Akaba who tried to lead while going around Osaka Castle but it ended up non-decisive. Then Shibui finally moved right before 30k mark. She stormed through between 30 and 35k in whopping 16:11, followed by 16:33. At first, I thought she might have started her surge a bit too early. To ensure the win, she probably could have waited a bit longer. But she was comfortable all the way through. While Akaba was experiencing the Baptism of the first marathon and gritting her teeth; Shibui never even showed the strain of marathoning. She started to look down a couple of times, the sign when she gets tired, in the final couple of kilometers; but she never gritted her teeth. She even celebrated her win by jumping up and down several times after cutting the tape with the time of 2 hours and 23 minutes 43 seconds.
What impressed me most was actually the way in which she handled the race; the manner with which she won the race. That truly was a Yokozuna (Grand Champion) race. I received a message from coach Watanabe this morning. “Now she’s learnt how to win,” he said. “Watch out!” Yoko Shibui is back and she’s now new and improved. And hat's off to coaches Watanabe and guru Suzuki (more about the old guru here) for getting her ready in 2 months. Now we have something to look forward to this summer in Berlin…???
Pic. 1) Yoko Shibui at the press coference
Pic. 2) Lead group running around Osaka Castle (Shibui #31, Akaba #41, Hara #34)
Pic. 3) Shibui finishing in 2:23:43
Pic. 4) Shibui celebrating the win by jumping up and down at the finish: note typical Japanese marathon shoes on her feet?
Pic. 5) Shibui with her "guts pose"
All images from "Sankei Sport"