The Japanese runner will line up in Monday’s race next to women half her age and they will do well to keep up. Less than a month before her 64th birthday, PE teacher Saitama, near Tokyo, is a long-distance runner. In 2019, she became the first woman over 60 to complete a marathon in less than three hours – and she is still the only athlete to achieve this milestone. In January, at the age of 62, she set her own world record for the 60- to 64-year-olds with a time of 2 hours 52 minutes and 13 seconds at the Osaka International Women’s Marathon. “My knee is not in the best shape and I would say I’m about 80% right now, but I’m still aiming for two hours and 50 minutes,” Yugeta told the Guardian on the eve of her trip to the United States. . Yugeta, who teaches full-time at Kawagoe Girls’ High School, has defied athletic logic since running her first competitive marathon in 1982 at the age of 24. The time of 3: 09.21 was significantly slower than those recorded in recent years. “It was a lot harder than I thought,” said Yugeta, who was a national middleweight champion during her student years. Japan’s Mariko Yugeta is competing in the Nagoya Women’s Marathon. Photo: Mariko Yugeta She had to put in her effort to pause for three hours to focus on raising her four children. “I wanted to run more, but taking care of my children meant I had very little time for myself. “I was jogging when I took them to play in the park and with the students at my school, but it was not the kind of preparation you need for a marathon.” Just in her 50s, with her youngest son then in her mid-teens, Yugeta began to realize her potential. He participated in evening training with a club in Tokyo, often returning home late at night. “The pace was difficult and I felt like I was getting faster.” Then in 2017, at the age of 58, he finally broke the three-hour barrier in the Osaka International Marathon. Two years later, she became the first woman in her 60s to run a race of less than three hours, finishing the Shimonoseki Kaikyo Marathon in 2: 59.15 – three minutes and 35 seconds faster than the previous record set by French runner Claudine Marchadier in 2007. ..

“Middle age should be a time to re-engage”

Yugeta is not the only Japanese athlete to compete for years after most of his peers retire. Earlier this month, the evergreen Kazuyoshi Miura played for an hour at a 55-year-old Japanese soccer match, while this weekend, 52-year-old keirin cyclist Keiji Kojima, who drove to the 1992 Olympics, competed in an aristocratic meet equestrian event. young enough to become his sons. Adventurer Kenichi Horie, 83, is currently trying to become the oldest person to set sail for the Pacific. “Age should not be an obstacle,” says Yugeta, referring to the victory of British runner Joyce Smith at the Tokyo International Women’s Marathon in 1980 at the age of 43 as a turning point. “Middle age should be a time to get back into the sport, not think about relaxing or quitting,” says Yugeta, who averages 25 miles (15 miles) a day in all. weather conditions and occasionally makes 2,400 meter Ascents to the fifth station of Mount Fuji. “People in this age group are usually more busy with work and family and this can affect your mental well-being and your body. “But as soon as I sweat when I run, it’s the moment when I feel mentally refreshed.” The training and fitness program includes nothing to surprise athletes younger than decades: a high-protein diet, plenty of sleep and an irresistible determination that has seen her with form diving and sciatica attacks, tendonitis and heel joggers. The reward for her workout is a relaxing hydration in a public bath. With 114 marathons under its belt, Yugeta says it has no intention of slowing down. The announcement of her intention for Boston was made last month, when she won the 60+ category in the Tokyo Marathon, then shaved six minutes of that time to break three hours again in Nagoya less than a week later. On Sunday she is going to meet her running hero, Joan Benoit Samuelson. Yugeta, while pregnant with her first child, had watched on television as Samuelson won gold in the women’s marathon at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. On Monday morning, the Yugeta will line up in Boston for its last competing 26.2 miles as a 63-year-old. While her aching knee could put her dream of breaking the 2:50 barrier on hold, a new world record is not out of the question. “I will definitely cut it again in three hours,” she says, adding that the pension is not in her plans. “I will continue to run as long as I can. “There are official records for the age group over 70 and I would very much like to achieve them.”