22 Japanese high school boys broke 14:00 this year. Only 9 American HSers have EVER done it

How many of the 190+ speed rated HS runners ever run a track 5k?

Very few, I imagine.

Is it super impressive but one thing to check is the age of high school athletes in Japan which I believe is slightly higher than the U.S. can make a difference if there’s a one year difference in age at which they finish high school? Maybe someone can chime in to provide some information on this?

Source: general

Quote:

“ This means that in high school the kids will range in age from 16 to 18 years old. Graduation is in mid to late March. This means that the vast majority of kids are 18 years old at graduation. The few kids whose birthdays fall between the graduation date and 31 March, would be an exception. means that in high school the kids will range in age from 16 to 18 years old.”

So it seems in fact that they graduate from high school at the same age as students in the US mostly.

One advantage that Japan has is that they run a lot of distance races on the track which gives them more opportunities to focus on those distances . Still super impressive

No, 3rd (12th) grade is usually 17-18 years old.

13:34.74 - Kosuke Ishida, 3rd-year, Tokyo Nogyo Daini H.S. *

13:36.57 - Taishi Ito, 3rd-year, Saku Chosei H.S.

Are born in 2002 and 2003 respectively

The depth of some of the HS ekiden teams is just freaking amazing:

AVERAGE 5,000 PRs of 14:00 and 14:01 for the top seven runners on EACH of the top two teams contending for the national HS championship!!!????

Any American HS x-country team with that kind of depth at that level could very possibly sweep the top 7 places at Footlocker or the Nike Cross Nationals.

Shinjirarenai!

Well that is one way to look at it. If you are a coach and you are looking at long term athletic development you might say that 'in order for a high school athlete to run under 14 minutes they are doing high amounts of volume and specific workouts to achieve those times.'

All coaches know you have to have somewhere to go with development. If they are doing everything at 18 what do you do differently to have them running 60-90 seconds faster in 4-5 years. The answer is they don't.

What is the 3200m equivalent for sub-14 and does this prove that we focus too much on the anaerobic system vs how the Japanese train?

coahc wrote:

If they are doing everything at 18 what do you do differently to have them running 60-90 seconds faster in 4-5 years. The answer is they don't.

No, they move up to the marathon and run somewhere between 2:05 and 2:08, some even while still in college.

Training for the Hakone Ekiden, which is basically a series of half-marathon-length legs, seems to prepare them well for that.

And yet eleven US-born runners have ran faster than 13:08, compared to no Japanese ever.

Splain me that. Where are all these Japanese high school phenoms disappearing to? From the Japanese college students I've met, I think they probably just quit because college is party time. The hard-work portion of their education is earlier.

parkerjohn wrote:

What is the 3200m equivalent for sub-14 and does this prove that we focus too much on the anaerobic system vs how the Japanese train?

From the article are the following two comments explaining why 20 broke 14 min:

1. One of the reasons is of course the shoes....

2. Another factor is the sharp drop in the number of races this season due to the coronavirus crisis.

I was in Japan for several years in the late 80s.

I was working full-time and training as much as possible.

The culture was very strong around distance running...Toshihiko Seko was still "the man."

I did run in an ekiden, and our team got third. Very popular races in Japan.

I remember winning an 800m and a 5K in the same local track meet. Not very fast, but I got an ovation while jogging around the track after the 5k victory, despite my 800m time being much better.

The Japanese TV coverage was excellent, showing the entire races, to include marathons. Not all the commercials cutting away even in a 5k the way that ESPN does, and that NBC will do during the Olympics.

By showing the entire race, the viewing public gets drawn into the drama and challenge of the races, rather than just seeing the opening laps and the last couple of laps.

After a big distance race, such running a leg during an ekiden, the runners often collapse to the ground...they would lose face if they didn't give everything they have during the race.

After road 10ks in Japan, especially when we were in the top 10, a couple guys that I trained and raced with would follow me straight to the shiatsu tent. What these shiatsu guys do is hard for me to explain, but the pain of the race goes away after a couple of minutes of manipulation of the legs. Acupuncture is also big.

I am not surprised by Japan's high numbers on a yearly basis, but disappointed that the shoe companies allowed greed to undermine the very sport they profess to support. I have ignored the times at the Valencia Marathon, because the real story at Valencia is the shoes, just as it is in Japan with so many HS age runners under 14 minutes this year. Too bad about the shoes, because Valencia it is a world class marathon with great weather and course and administration, and Japan offers fabulous opportunities for their athletes to excel in distance events.

Bad Wigins wrote:

And yet eleven US-born runners have ran faster than 13:08, compared to no Japanese ever.

Splain me that. Where are all these Japanese high school phenoms disappearing to?

The "problem" is that no one cares about 5000 meters after high school in Japan. Only those who really suck at long distances will specifically prepare for short distances like 1500m or 5000m, the rest - even those who in fact might have better track talent - will try to excel at the marathon. So they arent really disappearing, you just have to judge their success based on their results at longer distances.

76chine wrote:

The Japanese TV coverage was excellent, showing the entire races, to include marathons.

No kidding. I live in Japan, and -- at least in a normal year -- I can turn on the TV just about any weekend in the fall, winter, and spring and count on seeing hours-long coverage of an ekiden, marathon, or track meet.

The Hakone Ekiden course runs right through my neighborhood, so I'm usually one of the hoards lining the road on Jan. 1 and 2 to watch the runners pass by.

Distance running really is a national sport here, and the tremendous TV coverage is no doubt a big reason for that.

One thing that consistently pisses me off about the coverage, though, is that it almost completely ignores foreign runners to focus on the Japanese athletes.

It got to the point of absurdity when they didn't even show the winner of a recent national x-country championship race crossing the finish line because the poor guy was foreign athlete.

Meanwhile, you can count on regular commentator Akemi Masuda to tell you what the Japanese athlete who finished 5th likes to eat for breakfast.

Sigh. All in all, though, I'll take it any day over what the money-grubbing U.S. networks have to offer.

I want to be clear, the Japanese care deeply about the Track and 5000m and 10,000m. There are specific corporate teams dedicated to success on the track from 1500-10,000m. Note that many of the recent great road runners for Japan are coming from these track programs, as their speed is translating well to road distance. Their Top 10 list reads more like America in the 1980s.

Top 10 All-Time Japan 5000m

13:08.40, Suguru Osako

13:12.63, Tetsura Yoroizaka

13:13.20, Takayuki Matsumiya

13:13.40, Toshinari Takaoka

---13:15.34

---13:18.10

13:13.60, Yuki Sato

13:18.32, Yu Mitsuya

13:18.49, Yuta Bando

13:18.99, Hyuga Endo

13:19.00, Kensuke Takezawa

13:19.62, Koto Murayama

Taro wrote:

76chine wrote:

The Japanese TV coverage was excellent, showing the entire races, to include marathons.

It got to the point of absurdity when they didn't even show the winner of a recent national x-country championship race crossing the finish line because the poor guy was foreign athlete.

Meanwhile, you can count on regular commentator Akemi Masuda to tell you what the Japanese athlete who finished 5th likes to eat for breakfast..

Similar to Canada, where every conceivable level of ice hockey is covered by media sports reporters, and only then are other professional leagues briefly commentated on.

You get to enjoy wonderful coverage of the Tokyo Olympics, especially T&F. USA citizens will get their fill of BB, and the many human interest stories about women's gymnastics.

How many Japan high schoolers have run under 48? 1:50? 4:00?

You ever watch the Olympic or world champ 10ks and see the Japanese guys getting lapped?

very interesting. Makes a bit more sense considering the distance culture around Japan but impressive none the less.

Why?

What are the Japanese high schoolers doing in training that American high schoolers are not?

What is the reason? I still haven't seen it and I don't have it. College guys run track 5k races in the US. Our fastest college freshman, Young, would have lost to some high schoolers in Japan. That just doesn't make sense to me. Hocker would have battled to the finish for the win and he is the top college sophomore.

So the article makes a big deal about shoes. What shoes are they wearing and how much faster did they make their track 5k times?