Runner’s World+ Member: Yoshiko Jo
Yoshiko is a Runner’s World+ member. Join her and thousands of others chasing their goals with day-by-day training plans, expert advice from editors and coaches, and unlimited digital access. We regularly feature members online and in print!
I have been running since I was a student. So, it is hard to imagine “me” without running in my life. Running is an essential life element just like breathing, eating, and sleeping for me.
When I signed up for RW+, I thought I was just going to be able to read digital articles, but I found out that there are many other benefits from becoming a member. I subscribed without realizing all the benefits I would get, but this is great, and my subscription supports the RW magazine itself. I have been subscribing to RW for about 25 years, and have been happy to see that this magazine has contributed to the running community greatly.
I run to purify my soul. If I become one with nature and focus on my inner consciousness, I gradually become lost and reach a state of “nothingness”. Once I am there, I forget about my daily annoyances and feel at peace. Every day, I repeat this ritual.
During any season, I like to run in the morning, particularly at dawn. The powerful beauty of nature at dawn is simply overwhelming. When I see the power of nature at dawn, my soul is filled with bliss. Since I teach at a college, I like to run in the woods on campus, called the Crum Woods, in the morning. While running, I like to take photos of nature scenes like the sky and trees, and post them on Facebook and/or Instagram. In particular, I enjoy my morning run more if I know that students or graduates are seeing my posts and noticing the beauty of nature and ordinary life.
I wear San Diego based company RunningSkirts gear on every occasion, from daily runs to the Badwater 135. I love their athletic skirts. I also wear Topo shoes. My marathon base time has improved 20 minutes since I completely switched to Topo.
Currently, everyone in Japan is talking about the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, but I have a lot of big personal goals! First of all, I have hit the Boston qualifier (BQ) time as many as 95 times. I will hit the big 100 next spring, probably at Boston 2020. It is unfortunate to see that the women’s BQ standard time is easier to hit than the men’s time, so I ran for the men’s BQ time at Boston 2019. To qualify for Boston 2020, I ran under the men’s qualifying time by over 4 minutes. Boston 2020 will be my 16th Boston marathon in a row. I have also already qualified for Boston 2021, and I am proud to say that my time is a men’s qualifying time. My next goal is to set a Japanese national record for both the 144 hour and 48 hour timed events in my age group. My A-race will be in NJ in May. I ran 530 miles in 10 days (240 hours) at the same venue this May. My third goal in 2020 is to complete the main path of El Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James), which extends 500 miles (800km) from Saint Jean de Port, France to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. I want to experience Spain’s culture and specialties on foot. And then, I plan to stay longer in Europe to run the Berlin 100 and hope to set a personal best in the 100 mile event. My current 100 mile PR is 19:34 from 2018 in Berlin. So, next summer, I want to run over 620 miles (1,000km) in Europe. Last but not least, I do not get injured, and I can recover quickly from races, so I want to continue this trend and keep running continuously healthily next year.
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