From school runner to world champion, Japan’s marathon man has done it all

He has no coach, no sponsor and works five days a week as a school clerk, but that won’t stop Japanese marathon runner Yuki Kawauchi from racing with the best at the world athletics championships.
Dubbed the “strongest citizen runner in history,” Kawauchi squeezes races into his weekends, traveling at home and overseas before returning to work every Monday.
In doing so the 26-year-old has become a cult hero in marathon-mad Japan. “I want to show that you can compete at the world level even if you have a job like I do,” he told a recent gathering of reporters.
Kawauchi’s unusual success story has helped fuel the nation’s ever-intensifying enthusiasm for running, which saw a spike in 2011 after the earthquake and tsunami disaster prompted many to improve their fitness in preparation for emergencies.
“I will run straight and steady, aiming for a spot in the top six,” Kawauchi said of competing in the world men’s marathon in Moscow on Saturday.
His target may sound modest. But Japanese men have been without a world-class marathon medal since Tsuyoshi Ogata brought home bronze from the 2005 world athletics championships. Japanese women have done much better, winning the 2000 and 2004 Olympic golds through Naoko Takahashi and Mizuki Noguchi while bagging five non-gold world medals since 2001.
Despite having little time to spare between his full-time administrative job at a school in Saitama, north of Tokyo, Kawauchi has run in 22 long-distance events so far this year, which is a lot compared to most elite runners.
These include six full marathons, 10 half-marathons and a 50-kilometer “ultramarathon” in June, in which he collapsed with heat stroke.
Having finished 18th in his world championship debut in 2011, he failed to qualify for last year’s London Olympics. But in March he set a personal best of 2:08:14 at the Seoul Marathon where he finished fourth.
Kawauchi, who reportedly spends a quarter of his salary on racing, has won 10 marathons since his first in 2009, completing the last nine of those victories in a year.
“He is a model for us, even if not everybody can handle so many races as he does,” said former national team runner Yuko Manabe, 34, as she coached two dozen office workers and housewives running around Tokyo’s popular Imperial Palace route on a Friday evening.
A five-kilometer ring road outside the palace’s stone walls and mossy moats in the center of Tokyo, it has become a pilgrimage for runners who swarm there by the thousands even in the sweltering summer.
“Citizen runners have finally seen in Kawauchi, who leads the life of a salaryman, the first person to represent them at the world championships,” said Jiro Hashimoto, who has published the popular monthly magazine “Runners” since 1976.
“He is enormously popular at every race he runs,” he told AFP
Five men and three women, including 2004 women’s Olympic champion Noguchi, make up Japan’s marathon squad for Moscow. All but Kawauchi belong to corporate teams — semi-professional athletes hired by companies as ordinary workers but allowed to focus on training and competing to promote brand awareness.
Kawauchi was selected thanks to his victory at the Beppu, Oita Marathon in February, in which he outpaced Kentaro Nakamoto who was sixth in the London Olympics and who will also run in Moscow.
“It will be great if I can show athletes, who cannot join corporate teams, that they have an option to get strong as citizen runners,” said Kawauchi.
“In domestic races, I strongly feel that I must not be beaten by corporate teams,” he said, adding however that rivalries are put aside when representing Japan.
“We help each other in the national team.”
Last month he sent a strong signal of intent by winning Australia’s Gold Coast Marathon, tying the course record in the process.
Awarded the top prize of 15,000 Australian dollars ($13,350), he missed out on a bonus of A$5,000 that would have been his had he broken the record instead of equalling it.
“It is more than what I earn every month,” Kawauchi said.
“I’ve realized how important one second is.”