I'm a big fan of feats that defy the limits of the human condition, and I guess that's why I enjoy running so much. So it surprises me that I haven't followed the career of Yuki Kawauchi, now the men's 2018 Boston Marathon champion. In a race where he was nowhere near the favorite, he won by over three minutes with terrible conditions of cold, wind, and rain.
The man has a strangely phenomenal record: he has run 79 sub 2:20 marathons, all while holding a full-time job in the Japanese government as an elementary school teacher. He is an inspiration to runners across the world, not only because of his physical prowess, but the unconventional manner in which he is able to do it. He has no corporate sponsors and has to pay out of pocket to go to many of his races.
First, let us consider how taxing even running one marathon is, something even the craziest of people only do once a year. Eliud Kipchoge, the marathon Olympic Champion and the star of Nike's attempt to break 2 minutes in the marathon, ran two marathons in 2017, for reference.
Yuki Kawauchi has run four marathons already in the past four months, as well as three half marathons. He treats marathons as his training sessions, since it's hard for him to run quality miles while working for the Saitama Provincial Government. But it's nothing special in his eyes. Japan Running News blogger and Kawauchi's future biographer, Brett Larner had this to say about his running
“Most of his racing is not really much faster than what a lot of Japanese elites do in training for comparable workouts like 40km time trials,” Larner says. “It is simply visible because he does it in public instead of backroads or isolated areas of Hokkaido like everyone else.”
But since it has been all spectacularly public, especially after his win at Boston, his career to this point requires some celebration, or at least my personal attempt to know the athlete better. He has been dubbed the "world's best amateur," and this label has some accuracy, I believe it does him disservice. Having a full-time job and being a legitimate runner should not be seen as mutually exclusive - special education teacher Matthew Elliot nearly made the U.S. Olympic team in 2012.
Yuki Kawauchi's numbers ring of feats that, but what's more important is the way he does it. Needless to say, Yuki Kawachi defies traditional running convention, especially in his home country in Japan: by not being on a Japanese team and having no corporate sponsors, he is not paid to run. The only money he receives from running is his prize money from winning races.
Most marathoners run "doubles" and train multiple times a day to prepare themselves for races. Kawauchi only runs once a day due to his work schedule. Most marathoners believe in only doing one or two marathons, at most, in a year. Kawauchi does many.
Just watching the man run and observing his races, it's clear that he doesn't follow tradition. He doesn't follow anyone else's race plan or try to run someone else's terms. No, Yuki Kawauchi stays in his own lane and runs his own race and does things on his own terms. He does not err from whatever his plan is. He shows that it doesn't matter who the best person is before the day of the competition - it matters who's the best person on the day, and on April 16, Yuki Kawauchi was, defying expectation
Late in the Boston Marathon, Geoffrey Kirui, the heavy favorite and defending Boston marathon champion made a move that put a significant gap on the rest of the field. At the 2 hour mark, he had an approximately 90 second lead on anyone else in the field. Kawauchi, instead of going with the move, ignored it. He caught him gradually on his own terms and made up a 90-second gap in the next 10 minutes.
He taught us, on Monday, a lot about running, but also about life. It's not about what other people are doing or what race they're running. It matters what race we ourselves are running, and if we go on trying to fight away games on other peoples' terms, we'll more than likely fail. The way Kawauchi raced on Monday, as well as the unconventional way he trains, shows that we need to do things in a way that works for us and only us.
Unfortunately, it seems like most people are still not hopeful for the prospects of Kawauchi in winning another race. LetsRun.com's front page article has a headline that says, "We don’t think Yuki Kawauchi or Des Linden will win another major marathon." Both Kawauchi and the women's marathon champion, Des Linden, were nowhere near the top of the discussion for predicted winners. But they were the ones who persevered when conditions were not favorable at all, who adjusted best on a day that many of the other top runners did not.
My coach and many of my teammates often say that "it's not about what you do on your best days, but how you can make the best of your worst days." It's something I can say I'm personally not great at doing - I'm sometimes too dead set on a goal I've had for weeks going in. But there's a lot we can't control about conditions on a day we have something important: how we feel (physically or mentally), what the weather is like, or what other people decide they're going to do.
Ultimately, it's about how we respond to those adverse conditions. And Yuki Kawauchi has shown that that's what he does best, even on the worst of days. That's what we can learn from him, and that is what makes him a legendary human being.
