Why so much depth in Japanese distance running?

GulanRapp wrote:

We've all provably heard the story of the half marathon in Japan where the winner ran 62 and 500th place ran 72 minutes, but what is it that explains their astounding depth?

A fundamental difference compared to many Western Countries: Here, our goal is to do our best at what you do. There, the goal is to BE the best at what you do.

Have you seen how Japanese students (or any East-Asian students) study? As a whole, there are two things that Japan values very highly:

1) Hard work.

2) Recognition of hard work.

If you're familiar with the Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, etc. school systems, you'll notice that students are openly ranked based on their performance, and many schools are too. Taiwan is an extreme example, as you may see schools named "Taipei Number Two Girls School" indicating that, quite literally, it is the second most highly-ranked school in Taipei, Taiwan. Schools and individuals who objectively perform best are celebrated, and those who perform worst are considered useless.

Long-distance running is basically studying/academic performance in another form, in that it's a prominent method of distinguishing and celebrating an individual's hard work.

1) You cannot become a good distance runner without putting in the work.

2) Performances can objectively be ranked based on time, meaning those who work the hardest (the top performers) can be recognized. Just like exam scores.

**And yes, we're all aware that talent has a role in these things, but they do not see it that way. To them, if 2 people work equally hard but one performs worse, then their work was not actually equal. Other factors do not come into play.

Certainly, they have team events like the Ekiden, but even then, it's really an event of individuals. Over here, we have strategies like pack-running, minimizing spread, etc. that emphasize a team effort. In Japan, you'll notice that any time an individual performs poorly, he/she will personally apologize to their team and consider it a personal failure completely independent of teammates.

Long-story short, Japan likes the idea of "effort from the individual", and long-distance running is an exceptional way of showing it off to the public.

#fakenews

That was an excellent post.

Very interesting, thanks.

There is a long tradition of appreciation for distance running in Japan.

I will discuss one of your points.

In general Japanese students do not work hard. I agree that looking like you are working hard is valued in the Japanese work force, but actually being productive is not so important. In a comparison of countries productivity, Japan is way down on the list. The US is higher in both hours worked and in productivity.

Compared to other Asian countries I would rank Japanese as among the worst students.

They are so good at running because Japan values that sport and it is one sport where they can have relative success. Also when I look around a class of my students 90% of them have the correct body type to be successful runners.

unfair genetic advantage from the gift of Little Boy and Fat Man

Harry S. Truman wrote:

unfair genetic advantage from the gift of Little Boy and Fat Man

Cute. I wonder how many people here will actually get what you are referring to.

Fogrunr wrote:

There is a long tradition of appreciation for distance running in Japan.

Nope. Not TRACK distance running. Only marathon and ekiden. That's why there's depth in the half marathon results the OP quoted. Also, there's a lot of public support for those events in Japan. None at all for track which is why there is such a disparity between roadrunning depth (very deep) and track depth (very thin). There's corporate-sponsored roadrunning teams but very little in terms of track sponsorship.

Zero Wing wrote:

Harry S. Truman wrote:

unfair genetic advantage from the gift of Little Boy and Fat Man

Cute. I wonder how many people here will actually get what you are referring to.

Probably around 99%.

zatopek wrote:

I will discuss one of your points.

In general Japanese students do not work hard. I agree that looking like you are working hard is valued in the Japanese work force, but actually being productive is not so important. In a comparison of countries productivity, Japan is way down on the list. The US is higher in both hours worked and in productivity.

Compared to other Asian countries I would rank Japanese as among the worst students.

They are so good at running because Japan values that sport and it is one sport where they can have relative success. Also when I look around a class of my students 90% of them have the correct body type to be successful runners.

Just out of curiosity, are you making this assessment based on being an instructor in Japan? I ask this because you say "a class of my students".

If that's the case, the quality of the students will vary heavily with the school itself. The OP described high schools being explicitly ranked, but left out that in China, Japan, Korea, etc. there are high school entrance exams that determine which high schools you are actually permitted to attend.

I was an instructor in China for some time (and am Chinese to begin with), and the quality of students varied wildly based on the ranking of the school (granted, I only taught at 3 different schools in total). I presume Japan is most likely the same, unless their educational system has recently experienced some significant changes that I was not aware of.

Yes I am teaching in Japan now and have for the past 30 years. I currently teach at one of the top ranked universities in Japan. I am commenting because this is one of the stereotypes I hear often about Japan, especially from Japanese. On a similar note, I have taught many Chinese students here in Japan and in general they are very different from Japanese students. They are much more dedicated and hard working.

Do you have any suggestions for math education in the USA? Thanks.

1. Pay math teachers more.

2. Get better parents.

It is a wealthy country full of somewhat small (as in fairly lightweight) humans. Sounds pretty ideal for decent distance running.

Like previous American generations, Japanese don't mind busting their ass to a sub-70 half marathon as an unrecognized 300th-place mid packer. Individualistic, narcissistic, egotistical American Millennials can't fathom this.

GulanRapp wrote:

We've all provably heard the story of the half marathon in Japan where the winner ran 62 and 500th place ran 72 minutes, but what is it that explains their astounding depth?

That is easy. Get rid of indoor and outdoor track and make the the NCAA championship some HM race. Every DI school gets to bring 10 guys. You will get fast times and depth.

HardLoper wrote:

Like previous American generations, Japanese don't mind busting their ass to a sub-70 half marathon as an unrecognized 300th-place mid packer. Individualistic, narcissistic, egotistical American Millennials can't fathom this.

100% this

Good point.As far as the schools/education/culture goes.... I went to public school in Japan for 1 year. (Granted it was only 3rd grade). Compared to public school in the US the math they were doing was at least 2 years more advanced (and i was a pretty decent math student at the time). Science class was better. Art class was better. PE class was better (at least compared to what I was used to in the US... and I think came from a very "average" public US school system). We rode unicycles at recess and had a "sports day festival" which was treated like a mini Olympics. Sports were taken very seriously...especially something like distance running. The other big thing was "after school study hours" and private tutors. This kids would study tons after school every day. For P.E. class we had a distance "run test" that was a 4km. I took it pretty seriously and raced as hard as I could. The interesting thing was that almost every single kid tried to crush that thing... it was totally different from when you have to run the "P.E. mile" at US Gym class and half the kids walk and give up after 200m. The other thing I can see (besides the culture/mentality) is diet. Not very many obese people. They also seem to run pretty high mileage and are very disciplined in their training. When I went over there for the Izumo Ekiden in college (along with some fellow Ivy League runners) we got totally crushed. It was embarrassing. They had teams with 5 guys who were 29:00 or better for 10km.

HardLoper wrote:

Like previous American generations, Japanese don't mind busting their ass to a sub-70 half marathon as an unrecognized 300th-place mid packer. Individualistic, narcissistic, egotistical American Millennials can't fathom this.