Initially from Shizuoka, Yonezawa travelled over 500 km to attend Sendai Ikuei. There she targeted on the 1500 m and 3000 m, setting bests of 4:14.74 and eight:59.97, in addition to a 5000 m better of 15:31.33. “I needed to get robust,” she says. “and the place to do this was at one of many strongest colleges.”
The tactic of teaching there was completely different from what she’d skilled up to now, and he or she felt refreshed by the change. “You are just about answerable for your self there,” she says. “You must take note of your personal situation, simply do jogging when you might want to, and ask for recommendation on coaching based mostly on how you are feeling. By continuously inspecting your self that means you study to grasp your self and your physique higher.”
Higher data of herself helped Yonezawa hone one of many sharpest weapons in her arsenal, the flexibility to carry out as much as potential in huge races. “I would say that more often than not I ran my quickest occasions after I was competing for place. I ran my 1500 m PB attempting to win on the Nationwide Excessive College meet final summer season. Not each race went completely, however I feel studying how to have the ability to ship on the greatest races and run quick whereas going for the win had been actually good classes. I am fairly good at timing my peak for vital races, so sooner or later I hope that may assist me be a robust racer with out numerous ups and downs.”
The last word objective for each highschool workforce is the Nationwide Excessive College Ekiden. Yonezawa’s first yr at Sendai Ikuei the workforce received. Her second yr they completed third, and her senior yr they received once more along with her as captain. In that senior yr win she ran the First Stage, the ekiden’s best, and soloed a quick stage win that set the workforce’s profitable momentum in movement. “I used to be actually, actually completely happy once we received my first yr, however once we could not pull off a repeat my second yr it was so disappointing. It made the need to win once more stronger and stronger my third yr. Throughout my first two years the older runners on the workforce helped me quite a bit, so when it was my flip I needed us seniors to do our half to paved the way. It was the perfect yr out of the three years. I used to be so completely happy once we received.”
The completely different coaching method at Sendai Ikuei wasn’t the one main change. Dwelling in a dorm for the primary time made Yonezawa admire her dad and mom again in Shizuoka extra, and it deepened her reference to the opposite women she spent all her time with. “Making the choice to return right here I sort of talked to my dad and mom about my profession path, and I feel they actually assist what I wish to do. Typically once they ship me issues there’s a bit of be aware inside saying issues like, ‘Do your greatest! We’re behind you all the best way.’ Typically a handwritten letter exhibits your feeling the perfect. At college, all of us are going again to the identical dorm, so it actually seems like we’re all the time collectively. We will discuss to one another about something, like household. I really feel like I’ve met individuals who might be mates for the remainder of my life.”
All through the pandemic, the locations Yonezawa has been in a position to go have been “mainly the dorm, the observe, and faculty, that is about it.” Just lately, although, issues have opened up sufficient that she’s been in a position to go round city extra. “I went and wandered round downtown Sendai. I would been there earlier than to get physio, however I hadn’t gone into any retailers or something by myself earlier than. I used to be a bit of afraid I would get misplaced.”
Each time Yonezawa was going dwelling, or when she was going again to high school, she’d all the time purchase native sweets to present folks as souvenirs. “After I was going dwelling I would often purchase haginotsuki sponge truffles. After I was getting back from Shizuoka it might be unagi pie cookies and whatnot. Individuals are all the time proud of the classics.”
In January Yonezawa ran the Nationwide Girls’s Ekiden as a part of the Miyagi prefecture workforce. Up towards collegiate and company league runners on the Fourth Stage, she completed simply 5 seconds slower than Japan’s nice new hope, Seira Fuwa of Takushoku College, who broke the course file set by 5000 m nationwide file holder Ririka Hironaka. In April she is going to be part of Meijo College, who this previous season scored a fifth-straight Nationwide College Girls’s Ekiden title.
“After I took half in considered one of their coaching camps, the folks on the workforce had been unbelievably good, and I might inform everybody bought alongside and had good workforce spirit,” Yonezawa says. “I might inform it was someplace I would slot in and thrive. I wish to take it one race and one yr at a time, study the whole lot I can from the older runners on the workforce, and preserve getting even higher.”
At her commencement ceremony on Feb. 28, Yonezawa took an image along with her classmates, together with 2nd-year ekiden workforce member Kokone Sugimori. They had been all smiles. Yonezawa’s means to carry out when it counts places the 2024 Paris Olympics in vary, and with additional improvement at Meijo her street there’s set to open up.
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translated and edited by Brett Larner
