Yamathoners once again take to the streets of Tokyo for charity

It’s an exciting morning. It’s 9 a.m., the weather is drizzly and cool, and clusters of people are just starting to gather around Tokyo Station.

I jump into a massive Land Rover that will taxi members of the media to stations around Tokyo’s central Yamanote railway line. Technically, the vehicle wasn’t built for the narrow streets of the capital — it’s meant for off-roading and luxury safaris. However, we are hunting an elusive game: the “Tokyo Yamathoner.”

Tokyo Yamathon is the brainchild of 38-year-old Briton and long-term Japan resident Joe Pournovin. For the past 12 years, Pournovin and his 10-person team have organized the Yamathon as a joyful, inclusive and community-based event with a charity fundraiser at its core.

“I’d been part of an organization called the International Volunteer Group for a while, mostly doing small-scale fundraising,” Pournovin tells The Japan Times. “I’d organized a walking marathon once before called Sea to Summit that everyone really enjoyed, but it’s dangerous as an organizer to take over a hundred people out on those trails.

“And then I thought, Tokyo is relatively safe ... and how many people actually get to explore the Yamanote?”

The JR Yamanote Line is one of the busiest lines in Tokyo, appearing on maps like a long green ouroboros encircling the heart of the city. It was both a functional and poetic choice for the walkathon team. Plenty of people ride the Yamanote as part of their daily commutes, they thought, but how many of them really know the surroundings of each station? A sightseeing marathon, where participants aim to hit each of the 30 stations, could be an antidote to the soulless hustle and bustle many of us fall into here.

“There’s really something for everyone on the Yamathon route,” Pournovin says. “We encourage participants to pause for food or drink at any time. There are coffee shops and craft breweries, so much history and such a wide range of places the Yamanote Line takes you — from graveyards to big cities to quiet back roads. And since it’s a loop, it means the full-Yamathon competitors can finish where they started: the Tokyo Building Tokia.”

A team sport

Yamathoners form teams of between two to four participants and set off along the loop line at a sedate but unflagging walking pace. The goal is to complete the circuit within 12 hours. Four-person squads sometimes combine into 10-person megateams, but Pournovin says, the groups should ideally be small enough to avoid causing congestion on the heavily trafficked streets.

It’s easy to spot the Yamathoner from the windows of our Land Rover, so photographing them isn’t too hard. They are recognizable by their competition numbers, exercise leggings, jersey shorts and huge grins. The train stations are the best spots to ambush them for photos; Yamathoners are required to take selfies at each station to confirm they’ve “caught ’em all.”

Surprisingly, some groups include kids, toddlers in strollers and infants in carriers — though I do wonder how many of these youngsters see the long marathon through to the end. Still, the flat and tidy streets of Tokyo make the event accessible to a variety of participants.

“We love the excitement, the feel of camaraderie and everyone being together,” says a member of a six-person megateam calling itself the Sullivan Sisters. “And, of course, getting to view more of Tokyo.” They’re competing in the half-Yamathon, which goes from Tokyo to Mejiro stations.

Of those doing the full Yamathon, about 80% of them are expected to walk the route, while 20% will likely try to run it. When our Land Rover drives by with our cameras out, many participants strike theatrical running poses or pretend to mop sweat off their brows. The overall mood is jolly. Occasionally, one team will pass another walking the route in the opposite direction and let out a cheer.

A particularly bouncy trio, We Ceili 3, wave at and pose for the photographers when we catch them at Shibuya Scramble. They wear leprechaun jerseys under their number plaques.

“A ‘ceili’ is an Irish dance gathering. We’re all fans who met through Irish dance, so that’s why we chose it for our team name,” their representative tells me. “This is my second time participating in the Yamathon. We like this event because it’s having fun with friends, walking and doing the charity thing.”

A charitable endeavor

According to Pournovin, this year’s Yamathon was a huge success. In the end, 325 teams signed up. There were 1,155 individual competitors, 150 volunteers and, from donations and participants’ entry fees, the Yamathon raised ¥4.5 million — and counting — for charitable causes. As the first full-scale Yamathon since the pandemic hit, the volunteers are delighted with the turnout.

“Since the Yamathon began, our goal has been to elevate and connect,” Purnovin says. “Not just our participants and volunteers but our beneficiaries, too. We’re always trying to connect people to new resources, companies and donors, and to raise awareness.”

In past years, the Yamathon raised funds for Oxfam Japan’s Democratic Republic of Congo appeal, the Tohoku earthquake relief effort, Syrian refugee camps, school-building projects in struggling communities and more. This year, Yamathon funds support the Ocean and Sky Children’s Hospice, an NPO headed by Hisato Tagawa.

In 1997, Tagawa lost his 6-year-old daughter to brain cancer. The time he spent with her in her final months made him think deeply about the meaning of her life, he writes in a note on the hospice’s website.

“I came to realize that the medical care for children in those days was not taking children’s feelings (needs) into consideration,” he continues, adding that he learned of a children’s hospice in the U.K. that led to the Yokohama Children’s Hospice Project. “Each child must appreciate their potential and not be limited by their illness,” Tagawa continues. “I dream of a mutually supportive society in which the children and families living with life-threatening conditions are not left isolated.”

The Ocean and Sky Children’s Hospice now provides a home where families with children with long-term illnesses can come together and support each other.

Moved by Tagawa’s work, Pournovin and the Yamathon team, together with corporate sponsors, chose to embrace the hospice project last year as well. While the Yamathon’s donations will help maintain the running of the facility, the NPO hopes to build four more children’s hospices throughout Japan.

Future Yamathons

The finish line of the half-Yamathon is at Mejiro Station, roughly half the total loop. At 5 p.m., the competitors are trailing in, slower and wearier than at the start of the day but no less positive. For the full-Yamathoners, the day is still young. I’ve walked about an hour between Shibuya and Shinjuku and I’m already toast.

“This is a practice in reflexivity,” I insist to a Yamathoner who has just arrived at Mejiro. “I understand your pain now, I have empathy!”

The volunteer welcoming committee is loud and joyous, waving noise-makers, cow bells and pompoms every time a team arrives. Photographers snap pictures of each team against a backdrop, their official time posted on a large display. Though exhausted, the walkers flash bright smiles and victory gestures to the camera.

Thinking about the future of the Yamathon as Japan opens up and international travel resumes post-pandemic, Pournovin hopes that the event will continue to grow and reach more and more people.

“If it gets bigger, we might have two different starting lines so we could double our numbers,” he says. “Or, perhaps we could hold Yamathons across the country — along the Osaka Kanjo Line, for example. It depends on our growth, if we can reach out to new sponsors and get support for the promotion and venues. And volunteers — we always need more volunteers to make our event run smoothly.

“We’ve got all kinds of people, all kinds of nationalities as volunteers and as the participants themselves. It’s people pushing together, and it has been such a special day.”

It’s hard not to be caught up in the enthusiasm of the crowd. In what seems to be a case of the “hunter gets captured by the game,” I’ve convinced myself that I’d like to take part in the half-Yamathon next season. Pournovin is happy to hear my plans and tells me the 2023 Yamathon will be in either May or October. “Spring is better, just to avoid typhoon season,” he says.

Seeing the proud faces of the Yamathoners coming into Mejiro, however, it feels like not even a typhoon could stop these trekkers.

For more information on Tokyo Yamathon, visit tokyo-yamathon.com. For more information on Ocean and Sky’s Children’s Hospice, visit childrenshospice.yokohama.