A number of interesting things in the article.
1) It looks like he plans on bumping his mileage up now that he has more time to run.
2) He says he thinks he has less pressure as a pro.
Japan TImes wrote:
“I’ve had bigger fears until now (as an amateur),” said Kawauchi, who previously held serious practices twice a week or so and ran as many as 780 km per month, while some of the top industrial athletes cover 1,000 km. “I was called the ‘Civil Service Runner’ and if I failed, complaint phone calls would ring, for example. There were things that were tougher than being a pro. Being a government worker, the phone number and address (for your workplace) are all open. That means you could directly get letters, you could directly get phone calls....
3) And my favorite part of the article was how he pointed out there tend to be two types of pros. The fast ones who don't give a **** about interacting with the fans and the slow ones who do. He wants to do both.
Japan TImes wrote:
There are already many pro runners in Japan, but Kawauchi stressed that he would like to be one of a kind . He thinks that there are two kinds of pro runners in the country: national team-level runners who don’t make many public appearances and others who aren’t as good that show up at events to promote the sport. Kawauchi wants to handle both roles, being competitive and recognized by the public.
As an amateur runner, Kawauchi didn’t have any social media accounts.
That changed on Monday, when he created a Twitter account (@kawauchi2019) and opened one on Facebook. By Thursday night, he already had more than 15,200 followers on Twitter.
