My life is getting shorter," says Naomasa Kimura over a fried pork cutlet rice bowl drizzled in a sweet and savory sauce. "It's too much. I promised my wife this is the last time I try... It's a touchy subject." The 41-year-old inventory manager at a tractor company in Osaka is sitting at a cramped restaurant table with five other men eating the same dish in the lush, wooded town of Komagane in the valley splitting Japan's Southern and Central Alps.
It's a cool, damp June evening, and cheery garden gnomes are perched on a windowsill holding tools and politely observing the conversation. Most of the men are rail-thin with muscular legs, and several are wearing T-shirts from 100-mile races. They've each run a sub-3:20 marathon in the past year (most sub-3:00), a feat that satisfies one of the many prerequisites to even be invited to tomorrow's Athlete Selection Event, a two-day qualifier for the biennial Trans Japan Alps Race (TJAR) in August. The encyclopedic rabbit hole of entry requirements and necessary physical achievements is so demanding and convoluted that qualifying for one of the 30 spots in the actual race might be more impressive, and dangerous, than finishing it.
Roughly 70 applicants submitted documentation of their attempts to meet the requirements, which among many other things, included camping at least 10 nights above 6,562 feet (2,000 meters) and completing a race with an event time cutoff of 25 hours or more in less than 60 percent of that time. With 60 available spots, 59 runners gained entry to the two-day trial and were informed one month in advance.
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TO RUN 26.2 IS TO FEEL ALIVE
THE SUN IS rising from the east, and the waves of the Pacific crash below to the west.
LEAVE IT UP TO A PIECE OF PAPER TO TEACH YOU TO RUN EASY
BEFORE I FELL for running, I thought the hardest thing about the sport was the fast stuff: the speedwork, the sprints, and the intervals.
WHY-AND HOW-YOU SHOULD RUN DOUBLES
Those are just a few of the titles entered into my training log for the second run of a day.
FIND YOUR RUNNING COMMUNITY, ONLINE OR IN PERSON
I SIGNED UP for my first marathon while sobbing in the back of a rideshare, on my way to the airport to fly to my uncle's funeral.
FUEL WITH WHAT YOU WANT TO EAT
AS AN ULTRARUNNER, I'm all too familiar with the saying that long-distance running is an \"eating contest with a running component.\"
AT THE FERTILITY CLINIC, MY PAST CAUGHT UP WITH ME
I SAT IN the fertility doctor's office white walls, bare wooden desk, opaque window-alone.
THIS IS NOT AN ESCAPE STORY
AT 15, DARLENE STUBBS WALKED AWAY FROM A POLYGAMOUS CULT-THEN DISCOVERED A NEW LIFE AND COMMUNITY THROUGH RUNNING.
RUNNING WITH HANK
How my daughter's rambunctious mutt saved my sanity while she was lost to the darkness.
WHEN I FOUND OUT I HAD MS.I THOUGHT I'D NEVER RUN AGAIN.
I checked the pins on my bib, shimmied my spandex shorts into place, and teed up the stopwatch on my wrist.
A RUNNER'S GUIDE to sleep
Nike rocked the running world in 2018 when it released the Vaporfly 4%, claiming that the shoe could boost a runner's efficiency by that amount.
