Yoshimi Ozaki admitted Monday she was still trying to digest her silver medal win in the women's marathon on her debut at the world championships.
Ozaki claimed Japan's first medal of the championships on Sunday in Berlin with a time of 2 hours, 25 minutes, 25 seconds, finishing 10 seconds behind China's Bai Xue.
"It still hasn't really sunk in that I'm a medalist," Ozaki told reporters. "I've been getting loads of texts from my friends and the response has been massive. It's sort of nice and also scary."
Bai and Ozaki were locked in a neck-and-neck race after Ethiopia's Aselefech Mergia dropped out of the leading pack past the 40-km mark.
With a little over a kilometer left, Bai pulled away from Ozaki and sprinted through the finish line.
"I thought maintaining a rhythm would be important and I managed keep it going in the second half of the race," said Ozaki, who relished her moment on the medal podium at Olympic Stadium.
"You could see all across the stadium because the podium is positioned quite high up. It felt really great," she said.