Mara Yamauchi visits Oda Field!

Today Olympian Mara Yamauchi, who came in 3rd in Sunday's Tokyo International Women's Marathon in a PB of 2:25:03, visited Namban Rengo at Oda Field!
I felt really honored when she said that her running career in Japan started with Namban Rengo. For those who do not know, some Sunday in early 1998 (if I recall correctly) Siu-Fong Ma and myself ran a time-trial in Enoshima. Ma raced agains a young British lady named Emma. She lost the race, but she gained much more, at least for Namban Rengo. We invited Emma to our practice on Wed. nights, and she brought "a friend". A few weeks later, that friend was leading the work-outs, ahead of our fastest male runners, and she went on to, well, the rest is history...

http://marayamauchi.blogzine.jp/english/