Not pretty:
Not pretty:
Ouch.
I especially liked this comment:
nntyknnhty (18 minutes ago)
Reply 次回があるならば、練習でちゃんとフルの距離をガンガン走ってからレースに臨んで欲しい。いい選手だけに頑張って欲しい。
Incidentally, the older woman they show crying a few times is Fukushi's mom. The guy inside the track in the long black coat is her coach.
Watching the spirit of some of the japanese athletes and the lengths they will go to to finish is truly inspirational.
This girl will clearly be a great marathoner- it'll just be a matter of time.
thanks brett.
ouch. but i like that she laughs after she falls. i've read that she doesn't have the temperament for the marathon, but i'd certainly like to see her have another go at it. with better preparation, of course.
it looks like shes hamming it up for the crowd in my opinion rather than running as hard as she could have...I've seen lots of people fall apart and they never look like that when it happens
she embodies all that is good about sport. heart of a champion.
Does anyone else get the feeling that the Japanese runners are somewhat exaggerating the pain they are going through because they know that the public eats it up? Like seeing Tosa finish at the last WC and that guy in that Eikeden video(actually he may have been Korean). But seriously, I've been in pretty bad shape a few times myself but never fallen except once when I fell and didn't get up because of heat exhaustion. Just a thought. I think it is possible that she was overdoing it a little.
zeds dead wrote:
Does anyone else get the feeling that the Japanese runners are somewhat exaggerating the pain they are going through because they know that the public eats it up? Like seeing Tosa finish at the last WC and that guy in that Eikeden video(actually he may have been Korean). But seriously, I've been in pretty bad shape a few times myself but never fallen except once when I fell and didn't get up because of heat exhaustion. Just a thought. I think it is possible that she was overdoing it a little.
Oh absolutely. Those Japs are such shameless posers. No humility whatsoever.
honestopinion wrote:
it looks like shes hamming it up for the crowd in my opinion rather than running as hard as she could have...I've seen lots of people fall apart and they never look like that when it happens
Yeah, she does a total face plant on purpose to get sympathy cheers. Just because she manages to keep a stoic front as she falls apart does not mean she is not in physical and emotional agony.
Zeds:
You're probably right but it happens in the US as well--I hate all those piano music stories of "Up Close and Personal"! Well, I guess not all.
Fukushi showed, as far as I'm concerned, nothing but lack of appropriate preparation and disrespect to the distance. Amby Burfoot (in the movie, "Spirit of the Marathon" is right; "At some point, the distance is greater than the human physiology..." Unless you're appropriately prepared, you'll most likely pay for it; and she showed it didn't matter how fast you are. Sorry, Richard Gibbens; your "theory" of genetics didn't quite apply here. ;o)
honestopinion wrote:
it looks like shes hamming it up for the crowd in my opinion rather than running as hard as she could have...I've seen lots of people fall apart and they never look like that when it happens
I totally agree. I mean, c'mon, the way she falls and smacks her face on the track. Totally staged!
That's because she's trying to save face. She may not look like she's hurting, but obviously she is.
What makes you think she wasn't exagerating? She may not have been expecting to fall on her face, but that still doesn't mean she wasn't exagerating her condition.
Nobby wrote: Fukushi showed, as far as I'm concerned, nothing but lack of appropriate preparation and disrespect to the distance.
Sometimes I don't get you Nobby. Someone who blows up and staggers to the finish must have disrepected the distance? Seriously? You've run marathons, right? Have they all been pretty, works of art? Come on, Nobby! Snap out of it, man.
Lack of appropriate preparation - maybe. Poor pace judgement (given whatever her level of preparation) almost certainly. But disrespect? Gimme a break. By the same logic, we'd need to say that Radcliffe disrespects the distance based on Athens. That seems kinda loopy to me.
tool fest wrote:
What makes you think she wasn't exagerating? She may not have been expecting to fall on her face, but that still doesn't mean she wasn't exagerating her condition.
I agree totally...to do it 3 times is overkill!
Pete:
They (Fukushi herself AND her coach) knew what they should have done to prepare for the marathon. They chose to go up to "only" 22km but at the faster pace (3:10/km). That was their preparation for Osaka. Even Yuko Arimori publicly criticized, not only to Fukushi but also people around her, to allow her to enter the marathon and let her run the way she did with the longest (ever) run being 22km? Yes, I have run a few marathons; yes, I have bombed out as well. But I wouldn't have tried it if my longest run was 22k. On the other hand, one of Noguchi's favorite quotes is "(training) distance wouldn't lie."
OK Nobby, I guess you were privy to more information than was available on the surface, and I guess your comments seem like fair game.
I ran my first marathon with a longest run of 12 miles, and my finish probably looked as bad as hers. And I will admit - without reservation - that I disrespected the distance in that one too. :-)
Pete:
Of course, there have been some (some may even think Salazar was that way when he first ran NY in 1981); remember Bill Rodgers said "Marathon will humble you..." Well, even for Salazar, in the end, it did.
I persnally think that marathon has now become some of a social status or something--everybody wants to "run one" just to say "I've run a marathon!" A part of me thinks it's great; but also a part of me feels that there are many who "disrespect" the distance. There ARE some, like yourself, who would complete the marathon with "only" 12 mile long run. If anything, I probably "disrespected" marathon when I ran my first one; I did a 3-hour run a week before; then 2:30 on Tuesday, 2:45 on Thursday... I thought, I can run a marathon no problem... I broke 3-hours. But my last 6-mile was, well, pretty ugly.
I seem to hear so many people today just jump in the marathon and think they can run a 4-hour marathon "because so and so in the neighborhood did it..." There was a kid in the Twin Cities marathon a couple of years ago; I was at the pre-race expo at Coach Bill Squires' clinic. He said, "Do you think I can run a 4-hour marathon?" Coach asked him what he did last week. He replied, "I ran 20 miles..." Coach said, "Well a 20-miler might have been a bit too much a week before the marathon..." Well, it turned out he "ran 20 miles last week" to prepare for the marathon. That was it! Coach said, "If you broke 4-hours, let me know; I'll write a book about it!" I don't know if he did. He might have; but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Japanese are mostly marathon craze people. I've worked for a corporate team over there. We "usually" prepare so goddamn meticulously. Coach Nakamura said "We cross the stone bridge with a hammer in hand to make sure they stay standing"; meaning "You cannot be careful enough." People always talk about "genetics" or "born at high altitude." Japanese don't have none of that. Yet, in the marathon, they are next to Kenyans if not even better in some degree. This is because they try to think so thoroughly about preparation. Seko was a national high school 800 and 1500m champion. He must have been "genetically" superior. And he went out and train up to 50 miles to prepare for the marathon. Naoko Takahashi, Yuko Arimori, Hiromi Suzuki... They all did that. But Fukushi? They must have thought, well, she ran the half so well (Asian record of 1:07 something, I believe) off her regular training. She didn't train specifically for half at all. There have been so many articles curculating befoer Osaka saying, "Fukushi will challenge marathon off her regular track training program!"
I couldn't help but think of some trend in the past couple of decades in the US, with so many exercise physiologists saying that, after 70 miles a week, you'll get no additional benefit. Beyond that, there will all be "junk miles". There are still people like Richard Gibbens trying to promote the American dream of "lose 20lb in 2 weeks by doing 10 minutes a day of this and that...!" Run less and run faster. Run less mileage faster... I don't know if Fukushi's coach bought into that kind of "eye-washes"; but certainly they didn't prepare her right. And knowingly to take off like that was nothing but stupid or suicidal....or show no repect whatsoever to the distance.
I think Nobby's right. There must be respect for the distance, and she did not show it, for whatever reason. She might not have the temperament for it, but I'd still like to see her have a go at it again.