Arduous training behind Takahashi's win

Unquestionably, there was a coach tough as nails and a hellish training routine behind the gold medal win in the Olympic women's marathon. Naoko Takahashi and coach Yoshio Koide (61) succeeded in taking the gold at Sydney on Sunday. Behind Japan's first ever gold medal in the Olympic women's marathon was an arduous training routine beyond anyone's imagination, which Takahashi endured, and the steadfast determination of coach Yoshio Koide.

In July, Takahashi and her coach went on a training exercise in the Rockies, where the altitude was around 3,500m. In a place where almost no life exists, Takahashi ran 24km uphill everyday for 2 weeks. Basically, this was a training routine that broke all limits. Others feared for the runner's life due to the excessive high altitude training. However, coach Yoshio Koide stressed that in order to become the world's best one cannot train merely as others do. Even the coach himself dropped from 76kg to 60kg due to the training. There was more. Coach Yoshio Koide, seeing the 35km point as where the gold medal would be decided, set up a training camp at the 32km point during the local adaptation training without anyone knowing. From here, Takahashi ran the 32-37km distance twice a day in sprints.

In the end, Takahashi threw off her sunglasses and went full-out at the 34km mark, taking the lead by passing Lidia Simon of Romania. Coach Yoshio Koide finally achieved his dream of nurturing the world's best marathoner after quitting his dull high school teaching job 12 years ago to become a marathon coach. Yoshio Koide's philosophy is that one should shed conventional frameworks and respect the characteristics of each competitor. He did not rely much on scientific data.