Kitamura & Yasugahira form-check at Izu Trail Journey

The traditional end-of-season event in Japan’s Izu peninsula south of Tokyo is once again open for international competitors this weekend. For many who have run Izu Trail Journey it is an absolute highlight on our ATM calendar, but this year the late reopening of the country and the still high cost of travel have led to rather modest number of foreign names on the start list. Global trail star Dylan Bowman from the USA will be running, though, and also Hisashi KItamura.

Kitamura is returning from a long spell of illness, which began at Vietnam Jungle Marathon mid-October, where he still placed third but was never really himself. In fact, after showing his best trail form ever from March to July, his performances had already been going downhill. Even at Borneo TMBT 100, where he finally wanted to defeat local hero Milton Amat he was basically no match for the Sabahan. It would appear the Karate Kit was hit harder by a covid infection than most elite athletes. However, he showed optimism again after he ran MMTF 25km two weeks ago. And this weekend at Izu, he hopes to get the feeling back to run well over 70km without seeking a top result. The ultimate goal has always been the ATM Championship Final on Mount Apo, a course that partially suits him well, but also partially not-so well. Kitamura knows he will need to be strong and sharp to handle the summit attack and descent to have a chance against pure mountain runners such as Milton Amat and Alessandro Sherpa to get the ATM title next week.

One of the dark horses in next week’s female ATM title race will be Moeko Yasugahira from Sapporo. She was a great winner of Seoul 50K last month and has shown great motivation to be part of Team Japan at Mt Apo. Yasugahira will be fine-tuning her form also at Izu Trail this Sunday.

Hisashi Kitamura aims to build up his form again for next week’s ATM Final after a long spell of illness