Japan has long been a land of runners. In the immediate postwar era, long-distance athletes were a celebrated fraternity, exemplifying the grind and discipline of a nation working to regain its former standing in a destabilized world.
Fast-forward to the 21st century, and the Tokyo Marathon, inaugurated in 2007, is one of the largest worldwide, while in 2018, the Association of Road Racing Statisticians noted that Japanese runners had completed more marathons than those of any other nationality since 2015.
Japan’s fondness for running hasn’t always been self-evident. The pandemic-enforced running boom, however, resulted in a dusting off of the exercise gear as hitting the asphalt became one of the only outlets for escape during pseudo-lockdowns and work-from-home requests.
According to data from analytics group Nielsen — which looked at post-COVID running trends across 10 different countries — around 29% of the Japanese public now consider themselves runners in the wake of the pandemic, with 17% running once a month or more. An internal survey conducted by the Sasakawa Sports Foundation in 2020 found that as many as 5.8 million people, or 5.6% of the Japanese population, were running at least once a week — the highest figure since the survey was first conducted in 1992.
Catching the running bug is one thing, especially when it’s inherent in the zeitgeist, but maintaining it is another. Running groups are a great way to reignite motivation and foster a sense of community after two-plus years of hearing ad nauseam that dreaded and much-trumpeted phrase: “social distancing.”
There are plenty of clubs with varying approaches to choose from in Tokyo: from Rungirl, an NPO that seeks to empower women through jogging, to social running groups like Sogo Fitness and the Tokyo Night Run Club.
One such group is the Mikkeller Running Club (MRC), organized by the eponymous taproom, Mikkeller Tokyo in Shibuya. Its modus operandi differs slightly from fellow clubs in the capital: It comes packaged with a liquid incentive.
The first MRC was established in Copenhagen by Mikkel Borg Bjergso, founder of the Mikkeller brand, “when he decided he didn’t want to be chubby anymore,” says Hamilton Shields, director of the Japan branch. Faced with the choice of reprising his collegiate running days or quitting beer, Bjergso devised a happy medium.
“The idea behind MRC is ‘run to drink beer,’” Shields says. “It can be a great motivator on the days when you don’t really want to get out there.”
The MRC runs on the first Saturday of every month with a free beer waiting for each participant at the finishing line. The club splits into several groups; serious runners take on a 7-kilometer challenge, while fair-weather joggers tackle 4 kilometers at a more relaxed pace.
“The fast folks run fast, the chill folks run slow, and we all have a beer together at the end,” Shields adds. “The vibe in the bar is so good after the run.”
Happy trails
Tokyo Trail Running (TTR) also has a unique approach. “It’s not exactly a club, but more of a community for trail runners, and its beginning was more evolutionary than planned,” says TTR founder Robert Self.
Self established the community in 2008, when trail running — a fusion of hiking and jogging — was a very niche hobby in Japan. “I would run in the mountains and hikers would say ‘kichigai!’ (madman!), or ask me if I was being chased by a bear,” he says. “Most people had little idea of what I was doing, which just made me a lot more passionate to get people out running on these wonderful trails.”
Self had competed in races around the world when he was younger, including the Hong Kong Trailwalker 100K (now Oxfam Trailwalker), and admitted those days were marred by a ruthless competitive edge. “Heck, we fired underperforming runners after races,” he says. By founding TTR, he wanted to open the door to newcomers and create an environment in which people could share in his passion, “no matter their running goals.”
TTR posts one or two trail running events near Tokyo on its Facebook page each week. The routes vary, and can extend beyond the reaches of Tokyo’s borders, including waterfall runs in summer, trails culminating at onsen (hot springs) in winter, multiday excursions through the Japanese Alps, and more hard-core events for the wild at heart.
Self thinks of the group as “post-national” because running in the forest is a “great equalizer,” he says. “We are all the same while trail running, and details like language and nationality start to disappear. ... The mountains and the forests don’t care where you are from.”
Why bother running?
Another global study in 2020 found that 79% of runners said the activity helped them stay sane, 65% praised the mental benefits and 73% intended to maintain their habits once the COVID-19 pandemic waned.
The uninitiated may associate jogging primarily with its physical benefits. But the term “runner’s high” — induced by endocannabinoids (not endorphins, contrary to conventional wisdom), which flood your brain during exercise — exists for a reason. These stress-relieving neuromodulators promote psychoactive responses in your brain, resulting in feelings of calm, reduced anxiety and even mild euphoria. Over the long-term, the act of running may also improve your memory, focus and task-switching abilities.
Physical benefits, like burning calories or increasing cardiovascular fitness, are a more obvious by-product. But if your exercise routine remains fixed and lacks variety, your body will simply adapt, making incremental weight-loss targets harder to achieve.
This emphasizes the importance of running correctly, and for that, Namban Rengo might be one of the best clubs in the city.
Namban Rengo — whose name is a portmanteau of "namban-jin," the old word for foreigners meaning “southern barbarian” (which the Japanese falsely attributed to Dutch traders during the Edo Period), and “rengō,” meaning “union” or “association” — has been training at Oda Field Track in Yoyogi Park every Wednesday since the 1990s.
Founder Bob Poulson says he didn’t actually set out to start a running club. In 1989, Poulson entered the Okutama Ekiden (road relay) with a group of fellow expat runners from the United States and Ireland. It was the club’s first official race.
“After that, we continued to meet more foreign runners, then some Japanese runners started joining us, and it just continued to grow gradually,” Poulson says. “We always kept it as a very informal club — I was the leader because someone had to decide the workouts and make a few decisions”
Training with the club remains free, and all ages and abilities are welcome. Paying members — those who pay ¥2,000 to be on the mailing list — currently number at around 200, though half of these are now based overseas.
Current club leader and running coach Harrison Uk admits that Namban Rengo is best suited to serious runners.
“I would say 90% of the members are training for races, ranging from 5K to ultramarathon,” he says. “There are a few who just come along just to stay fit, but it’s definitely a minority and they don’t show up as regularly as others.”
One of the recurring themes in Tokyo’s amateur running clubs is a sense of togetherness. Running can be a solitary activity; one that lets the mind drift and decouple itself from the pressures of everyday life. Paradoxically, however, it’s often through running together that personal goals are best attained.
“The team and competitive spirit of everyone, the pain sharing, the adrenaline, are the main factors you will find in a group,” Uk says, “and that can drastically improve the quality of your training.”
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