Heisei Mountaineering Stops Takigahara SDF Base From Scoring 10-Year Streak at Mount Fuji Ekiden – Brett Larner – Japan Running News

The roster that Heisei Mountaineering put together for this year’s race raised eyebrows among everyone familiar with the Japanese trail running scene. Handling the 5th and 7th legs was Ruy Ueda, winner of the Fuji Mountain Race last week for the 2nd year in a row and a fixture on the international sky running circuit. On the 4th and 8th legs was Yamato Yoshino, the Hasestune Cup champion with World Championships experience on the Japanese national team. A former Hakone Ekiden runner who has moved to trail running the last few years, Hikaru Kitamura was in charge of the 3rd and 9th legs.

Altogether, the Heisei Mountaineering team had road racing speed, mountain running technical skill, and the physiological resilience to perform at altitudes over 3000 m. The demands of the Mount Fuji Ekiden vary dramatically depending on the leg, but Heisei Mountaineering showed supreme skill in assigning athletes who had the credentials to handle exactly what their stages called for. With Takuma Shimizu starting off and anchoring, Kazuki Nitta on the 2nd and 10th legs, and Masato Kamishohara handling the summit stage, the team was finely-tuned for this year’s race.

At the same time, in pursuit of a 10th-straight win Takigahara SDF Base made some changes to the running order that had been unbeatable for almost a decade. The biggest change was the move of Toru Miyahara from his longtime position on the 5th and 7th legs to 4th and 8th and the placement of Hiroya Moriguchi to fill Miyahara’s usual spots on 5th and 7th. The 5th leg features a tough climb from the Nigo Hachi-shaku station to Nanago Go-shaku station, the longest segment of the ascent part of the race taking about 45 minutes to cover. Moving Miyahara effectively meant taking a proven 5th leg specialist to the shorter, faster 4th leg.

Another change in the Takigahara lineup was on the summit leg. Replacing the team’s longtime summit runner Yuya Kawasaki, Hiroya Funamizu was tasked with the crucial stage in his debut in this race. There must have been a decision within the team to start shifting responsibility away from the veterans to the next generation. But there’s. no avoiding the fact that these two changes had a big impact on the overall outcome.

Takigahara led by 1:42 at the end of the 4th leg thanks to good runs on the early road legs, but Ueda cut 16 seconds off to put Heisei 1:26 behind at the start of the summit stage. Kamishohara outran Funamizu by almost 3 minutes on the summit stage to put Heisei in the lead by 1:25, and even though Takigahara closed that to 59 seconds over the next 2 stages of wildly steep descent thanks in part to Miyahara running the fastest time on the 4th leg, by the end of the race Heisei had pulled away again to win by 2:07.

It’s probably inaccurate to wave off the results this year as just an upset. Careful planning went into Heisei Mountaineering’s decisions on who to assign to each stage given the skills they brought to the table. They put the 2-time Fuji Mountain Race winner on the longest ascent, the Hatsetsune champ on the middle part of the race where the gradient changes rapidly, and a Hakone runner on the fastest part of the descent. What was innovative was the way they incorporated both trail and road specialists to play specific roles within the team.

At the same time, Takigahara’s decisions had their own logic. Putting Miyahara on 4th was probably a strategic move to make sure they could drop any chase pack if it was still close at the Taboo checkpoint. Giving Moriguchi and Funamizu chances on 5th and 6th was a move that they had to take to be ready for the next decade after almost that long a streak of wins. But the combination of those changes all at once made this year more challenging than they expected. There was just no way to make up the turnaround that happened on the summit leg.

The last few years independent division teams have been bridging the gap to the SDF division step by step. This was the year that they finally got there at the front end of the field. But it’s worth looking a little further ahead. If top-tier trail runners like the ones who raced this year are starting to seriously looking at this ekiden as an event worth competing in, the level at the Mount Fuji Ekiden is going to go up even further. 13 teams in the field this year were doing it for the first time. Some of them were put together by former Hakone Ekiden runners, and some had people with national team experience. In its 51st edition this ultimately local race has quietly started becoming a focal point for trail running talent. The results this year give concrete data showing that shift in progress.

1. Heisei Mountaineering Club – 3:50:39

2. Takigahara SDF Base – 3:52:46

3. Rumoi SDF Base – 3:57:49

4. 1st Airborne Brigade – 3:58:31

5. Team Chibidango – 3:58:57

6. SC Tanzawa Hatano – 4:02:43

7. Nerima 1st Infantry Regiment – 4:03:51

8. Toyota Sportsman Club – 4:04:05

9. Takada SDF Base – 4:05:22

10. Engaru SDF Base – 4:09:03