Improving half marathon time from 72 to 63 and full marathon time from 2:38 to 2:14 in only one and a half years. How did he make it?

Improving half marathon time from 72 to 63 and full marathon time from 2:38 to 2:14 in only one and a half years. If such a man exists in this world, what do you think about him?

The truth is often stranger than a novel. This is all about Jake Barraclough who I am going to talk about from now on.

I met him at Nagano Marathon. We almost ran together in the whole race. He took a video with his handy camera and spoke to the camera during the race. These days, it is not rare anymore. So, I just thought ‘’Jesus Christ, here is another weird guy in a road race’’. Honestly, I did not care about him so much then. I just focused on my race.

After a while, I got a message from my German friend Johannes Motschmann ‘’You are in a YouTube video’’ with the link of the video. Am I in a YouTube video? I have published many videos on YouTube already for 5 years. But all Johannes can speak in Japanese is Pokemon and Conan. So, it should not be my video.

With wondering, I clicked that link and watched the YouTube video and sure I was there in Jake’s video on YouTube. I watched some of his videos and I was very impressive that he learnt from Japanese marathon legends modestly. And his slogan ‘’Train harder, not smarter’’ is also very impressive to me.

Running is just a hobby for amateur runners. So, of course everybody can run in their own way. They can do anything they want. It is 100% OK.

However, I hate a current tendency that a person who makes a good result with less training is smart, elegant and great. While looking down to hard working people who cannot make good results temporary.

‘’If you train a lot, it is normal to make a good result. That doesn’t make sense at all. I train efficiently and work smart’’

Some people say that kind of thing and deny working hard people.

However, I want to ask you one thing.

‘’What can gutless people who seek for only efficiency and do not work hard achieve?

In fact, you need to work hard to learn efficient training methods. Sometimes people deny my opinion which took me 15 years to make with only one word like ‘’I don’t think you are right’’ online and they think they beat me. They haven’t achieved anything great, but they think they can argue with me in an equal position.

In that current tendency, suddenly an English gentleman comes up and he encourages us to work hard instead of working smarter. Just in case you are wondering if he is smart, he took master degree of sports marketing in the USA, he is smart. Rather, generally speaking, he is so-called ‘’intelli’’ in Japanglish (meaning he is intelligent or white collar).

Photo taken by @kinematographysota

More interestingly, he learnt from Japanese marathon legends in 1980’s, 1990’s like Seko Toshihiko, So twins and applied their training into his own training. They are absolutely my hero. I always wanted to be like them. However, recently it is not rare that Japanese runners don’t know even their name.

Other than that, he analyzed top runners training in the Western countries and East African countries, and he found out one truth ‘’300km per week training is not too much’’.

If I say that, amateur runners would say ‘’Amateur runners do not have enough time because of work and/or family, running is just a hobby. So, running 300km per week is not realistic’’.

I totally understand that. So, I usually set the standard mileage in 300km a month (not a week) for amateur runners who are aiming at running marathon under 3hours. However, I always say that you need to run around 200km a week to reach at your potential ability in half marathon or full marathon.

Our bodies are almost same. There is no big difference (for example, even if you are an English man, you cannot fly like birds, right? So can’t we Japanese people).

Jake is such a person and I had a big question why he came to Japan. For Japanese, Kenya is far away from here in Japan physically and mentally. While with the UK, there is almost no time difference, there is a direct flight from the UK to Nairobi in Kenya, the UK colonized Kenya in the past, so Kenyan people speak English. And as far as I know, Kenyan people are not against the UK generally. Rather, Kenyan people like Mzung (non-white people) who gives them some foods, running stuffs, money etc. Also, the price in Kenya is cheaper than here in Japan. And there are many top runners there. It doesn’t make sense to come to Japan from the UK instead of going to Kenya.

While I also thought he would be one of a typical foreigner who loved Japanese culture like Manga, Anime, Sushi, Mt.Fuji, convenient life, shrines, temples etc. Most of Westerners around me are this type.

However, he denied my guess. He likes Japanese culture, but he knew Japanese culture after he came to Japan. He also didn’t know much about Japanese history. I asked him ‘’How much do you know about Japanese history’’ and he said ‘’Like what type of history?’’ so, I said ‘’How did the UK affect on Japan’’ and his answer was ‘’I don’t know much about Japanese history’’.

What I want to say is not ‘’He is not good because he didn’t know much about Japan’’ but running is the only thing that brought him to Japan. His pure heart is very impressive to me.

Let’s go back to the story why he didn’t choose Kenya but Japan. As a matter of fact, Kenyan athletes very often get banned because of doping. As far as I know, most of Kenyan athletes do not use illegal materials. However, even if I hear a news that one of the best Kenyan athletes gets banned out because of doping, I just think ‘’Oh again’’.

It’s something like one of my workers catches a cold. People do not catch a cold very often. However, everybody catches a cold once in a while. Just like that.

For those reasons, he could not respect Kenyan athletes so much. While it is very rare that Japanese athletes get banned out because of doping. I personally know one person in the last decade. This case was also not on purpose. She got an injection for anemia. And that injection included EPO which increases your hemoglobin level and that is one of forbidden material. Personally, I am not sorry for her because all endurance athletes should know EPO is forbidden material. But I know her personally and I believe that was not on purpose. She is that kind of person.

For the fairness, Jake also knows doping is not the only thing that makes Kenyan athletes the best in the world. He says ‘’Undoubtedly Kenya is still the best country in the world without any doing’’ in his YouTube video.

However, he could not respect the situation that in every week someone in Kenya gets banned out while Japan is better than Western countries without doping. He respects this cleanness of Japanese athletes.

The first time he touched Japanese running situation is when he read a book titled ‘’The way of the Runner’’ which is written by Adharanand Finn. This book tells us how Japanese runners train. One of the main character of this book is Mr. Takao Kenji who was a coach of Ritsumeikan University at that time. Actually, he and I run on the same running course these days. Jake read that book and made a decision to come to Japan.

Jake started running when he was 10 years old. However, he had never run seriously since he made a decision to come to Japan when he was 25 years old. He was just running for fun and training for mixed martial arts. But surprisingly he already ran around 100km a week just for fun and training for mixed martial arts.

I always say ‘’Easy runs are much more effective training than most people think’’. I am 100% sure that he also built his solid base with these 100km just for fun runs.

To enter into an University in the USA and get scholarship for that, he started training more seriously for a while. He did interval workouts and tempo runs based on his solid aerobic base. He improved his 5000m time to 15:12 in short period. Additionally speaking, he was in top 10 or 20 in cross country in the UK when he was 10-12 years old. He was also talented physically.

Even so, consistent 100km a week training in his teenage years gave him big advantage for his running career. Unfortunately, he should have stopped running for a while because of his health problem. He got an operation twice. During that time he started mixed martial arts when he was 15 years old because a doctor said that running was a bit too dangerous for his health problem. After that, he was running just for building up his endurance for mixed martial arts.

But I was wondering whether fighters ran such a lot (100km a week). He said that most fighters did not run like 100km a week but it was fun for him. When he focused on mixed martial arts, his body was fighter’s body and his body mass was 80kg. After he focused on running, he was losing his weight more and more and now his body mass is only 65kg.

Another question is, he had done mixed martial arts for 10 years when he made a decision to focus on running. Why did he decide to run more seriously?

For me, the reason is a bit crazy. In mixed martial arts he needed to repeat basic drills over and over again instead of fighting. And those drills were boring to him while running was always fun for him. Only for that reason, he decided to quit his job as a teacher and moved to Japan.

I think migratory birds have more certain reasons why they move.

Anyway, he moved to Japan with his amazing decision ability. But I think that that is the right way to live. If you live in the right way (train yourself, study hard, work hard, kind to other people, help someone who is in trouble or protect people who are weaker than you are etc), your instinct works the best. If your gut feels that this is the right way, usually that feeling is right. People are tend to make a decision by using their reason, logic, calculating probability, common sense, what other people think about it or something like that. But I personally believe that your instinct is the most important thing only if you live in the right way. If you do not live in the right way (like being lazy, being addicted to alcohol, porno, hookers, mean to other people, bullying weaker people than you are etc), your instinct do not work well at all. I felt that Jake lived in the right way, so I asked him an interview on the phone. And I think my feeling was right.

That’s why I was wondering how his parents educated him. I asked him ‘’Do you think, you got a special education? Or just a normal education?’’ and he answered ‘’I think, that was just normal education. There was nothing special. However, my parents were always supportive. They supported me and encouraged me whatever I did’’.

Personally, I also think (guess) that his parents did not support him too much. Sometimes parents think of supporting their children and that bothers children to be independent enough. Also parents are tend to protect children too much, as a result, children cannot do whatever they want to do and cannot think well, do well or make a decision well by themselves.

Now, let me talk about myself a bit. When I said ‘’I don’t need to go to any universities’’, my father said ‘’Go to an university’’, when I said ‘’I’m gonna quit the university and become a professional runner’’, my father said ‘’Graduate the university’’, when I said ‘’I’m gonna be a professional runner’’, my father said ‘’Go to a corporated team（実業団）’’, when I said ‘’I’m gonna marry this woman’’ (at that time I already started up my own small business), my father said ‘’Good. Then reconsider your job’’. Parents love their children so much. And that’s why parents are tend to lead children into a safer way instead of challenging way. I am coaching high school boys now and still feel the same tendency.

This is just my guessing by listening to him. But I personally guess that his parents supported him to think by himself, make a decision by himself and take an action by himself since he was still a kid.

Without getting coached by anybody, he increased his mileage up to 1000km a month, then gradually increase the intensity of his total mileage, started doing some speed works, increasing the volume of speed works, started doing somehow fast (steady pace) long runs by himself. As a result, he improved his time from half marathon 72 minutes to full marathon 2:38 to half marathon 63 minutes and full marathon 2:14.

Most Japanese elite runners who join a corporated team (実業団), they focused on running very seriously under a good coach, already since they were a junior high school student. They have had a good coach not only in a junior high school, but also high school and university and finally they became a semi-professional runner. They hadn’t have many chances to think, analyze, make a decision and take an action by themselves. I don’t think that that is bad at all. Getting coached by an expert in the early age is very good.

While in that way, it is difficult to train athlete’s thinking ability, decision ability, analyzing ability, controlling own mind ability etc. This is the biggest difference between elite runners and amateur runners at least in Japan. Amateur runners should do everything by themselves in a good sense and bad sense. And that is one of the most fun parts of running. I think one of the reasons why Jake is getting faster and faster so far is that he learns, thinks, analyzes and takes massive actions all by himself.

And additionally speaking, his way is very similar with my way during my college days. At that time, I didn’t join any track and field clubs. I trained alone. I trained around 1000km a month alone and ran half marathon 63:09 before carbon shoes came up to this world (Also I was so poor at that time. Buying anything I wanted to eat in a supermarket was my biggest dream at that time hahaha).

Like Jake, I did not care about physiological indicators like blood lactate accumulate, heart rate, % of the maximal oxygen intake, etc, I analyzed what successful runners did in this real world. I applied it into my own training, analyzed the race results and training results and made a new hypothesis and made a new plan based on that hypothesis and repeated this cycle over and over again.

I also studied physiology at that time and am still studying physiology. But this is just for fun and for explaining amateur runners why they should do this well.

Also Jake says ‘’I prefer to stay in a simple way. What successful runners did in this real world is more important than physiological stuff. And using physiological stuff too much makes complexity. I apply what successful runners did in the past into my own training and change it based on my feeling’’.

I also agree with him. But normal people including me cannot understand things properly, make a decision properly and make good results in a short term period as much as Jake did in the last one and a half years.

That’s why I use logic and reason. But the best way or real way to understand things properly is using our instincts. Even great scientists made great discoveries by using their instincts finally. They studied hard. But finally they used their instincts to make a great discovery.

However, only talented people can do this and that is less than 1% of the population. That means that Jake is not only talented physically but also talented intelligently. Also he has a gut to make it happen in this world in a short term period. That’s why I respect him so much not only as a runner but also as a human being.

I always tried to make a simple training principle that everyone can use easily and make a good result for a long time. And he instinctively followed this training principle. Roughly speaking, the way is below.

1 Increasing mileage without thinking about the intensity at all.

2 Starting increasing the intensity of total mileage. Here the intensity does not mean interval workouts but the intensity of endurance runs which you daily do. In this stage, also starting doing some moderate runs (in Jake’s term steady runs)

3 Starting doing with some speed workouts with less quantity (like short fartlek 20x1’/1’, 10x400m, 5x1km and so on). Increasing the volume gradually first and then trying to increase the intensity.

4 Mixing up easy runs, moderate runs (steady runs) and hard runs properly and finally doing some specific workouts like 4x5km, 30-40km in 90% of race pace etc to get fitter and fitter for a marathon race.

Jake improved his half marathon time from 72 minutes to 63 minutes and full marathon time from 2:38 to 2:14 in only one and a half years after he moved to Japan. However, we should not miss the fact that he consistently ran 100km a week running since he was 10 years old even though he had to have break because of the surgeries. Also Jake and I both agree that doing mixed martial arts for a long time gave him physical strength to avoid running injuries. Maybe his bones and muscles are tougher than normal runners and that helps him to avoid running injuries.

Additionally, doing mixed martial arts would train his neuromuscular and his brain stem. That built his physical base as a runner. By chance, his ways became one way to running.

Usually it takes 10-20 years to reach at the maximal ability in long distance running. However, runners who started running after 40 years old should think about aging. So, for most amateur runners, it’s good to take the above 4 steps in 7-13 years to make the real personal best time in the life.

More specifically speaking, you better focus on general workouts (basic workouts) in the beginning and more race specific workouts later.

By the way, a lot of readers might be wondering what he does for making a living in Japan. As I already described, he quit his job as an English teacher only in 4 months. Then how did he make a living in Japan?

In the beginning, he got a scholarship of Daiwa Security (a Japanese company). Daiwa Security tries to make good human resources who can be a good cross linkage between the UK and Japan in many fields like doctors, layers etc. He got financial support and 30 hours a week Japanese lessons. One interesting thing is that most of his Japanese ability came from one month home stay in the end of the program. The reason why I think this is interesting is that most of Japanese people can read and write English somehow while they cannot speak English at all. No matter whether it is English or Japanese, language education in Japan is focused on writing and reading but not much on speaking and listening.

During our interview on the phone, he chose to speak in English. However, his Japanese is already good enough. He is a modest person.

During his scholarship time, he posted videos about his running life in Japan on YouTube and has 70,000 subscribers. He majored in sports marketing in his master degree. He strategically prepared and took an action based on that strategy.

When vice president of my company came to my company (Thank God!), I always told him ‘’Branding is how you live’’ because if your life is boring, your contents cannot be interesting no matter how you tell people. However, no matter how much interesting your life is, if you are bad at telling people your life story, you cannot be a successful YouTuber.

In terms of Jake, his life is very interesting and additionally his strategy as a Youtuber is great. He focuses on non-Japanese people who are interested in Japanese running culture and he knows how to tell a story interestingly. He is literally a cross linkage between the western countries and Japan.

Additionally, he is going to get a sponsor contract with a shoe brand in several weeks(probably he already has a sponsor by the time you read this article). He is going to start his career as a professional runner. His dream is also training with a corporated team（実業団） in Japan. He is already fast enough to train with them. So, I really hope he finds a good team as soon as possible.

Lastly, I asked him ‘’Is there anything else you want to tell the readers?’’. Then he answered ‘’I learnt from Japanese the Japanese spirit ‘’Working hard’’. Their attitude towards running is really serious’’.

We Japanese also should learn from his modest attitude towards things modestly and re-learn ‘’the Yamato soul’’ which completing things with an iron will once you make a decision to make it, no matter what happens to you.

You can watch his YouTube videos from here. You can enjoy his dramatic life and it should inspire you a lot if you are a runner who runs seriously or wants to run more seriously.