An woman runner who speaks 6 languages improved her halfmarathon time from 1:47-1:21 in 1 year.

An woman who is aiming at running half marathon 75 minutes and wasn’t a member of athletic club in her school days. Plus, she ran only 1:47 half marathon a year ago. What do you think about this kind of person?

Maybe normal amateur runners might think ‘’Which animal are you talking about?’’ or ‘’It is simply impossible. Even for an athlete, it’s not easy. Come back after you turn your fucking brain on’’ or that kind of thing.

Even you my blog reader who understand challenger’s mind well would know that that is not easy. Even though you would give her a warm word something like ‘’The goal should be individual and you can aim at whatever you want. Let us cheer you up’’.

‘’The possibility is quite low’’ That’s what you think, right?

Probably that is right. Or I would say ‘’Statistically speaking, it is a rare case’’.

A crazier thing is that she quit her job and started running under a Kenyan coach with Kenyan athletes.

After she got a master’s degree, she started working for the Swedish Trade and Invest Council in the Swedish Government and she even held an event that the Swedish King and the president of Singapore met. She is so-called ‘’an Elite’’. But she made a decision to get out of so-called ‘’a normal great life’’ and go into a great life for her.

You might think ‘’Wait wait, I heard this kind of story somewhere’’.

Exactly! An English man Jake Barrclough who quit his job in 4 months, made a decision to move to Japan and improved his time from half marathon 72 minutes to 63 minutes and full marathon time 2:38 to 2:14 in one and a half years.

I don’t know whether Jake are Moa in male version or Moa is Jake in female version, from now on, I will introduce you Moa Stahlberg who already ran Half marathon 1:21 from 1:47 one year ago and in the end of this blog post, I will give you the PDF file that her coach Thomas who ran half marathon 63 minutes and full marathon 2:18 teaches us some important things about long distance running. So please read it through.

As I described her an Elite, she speaks 6 languages even though she does not speak Japanese so far unfortunately. She speaks Swedish, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese.

I don’t know much about Chinese, but there are some types of Chinese and she speaks Mandarin.

The reason why she speaks so many languages is because of her strange life. She was born in Sweden and grew up there until 6 years old. And then she moved to France and spent her time there until 12 years old. And then she moved to Brazil until 17 years old and then went back to Sweden and finished her high school in Sweden in one year.

There is an international school named international baccalaureate. There are international baccalaureate in Sweden and Brazil so she kept doing the same curriculum in both countries. So, she graduated her high school in Sweden only in a year.

After that, she went to a university in Sweden. She took her bachelor and master there. She spent her time for 6 months in Barcelona in her bachelor days and for 6 months in Madrid in her master days as an exchange student. That’s why she also speaks Spanish.

Additionally, during Covid time, offline classes are shut down and the university gave her only online classes, so she decided to go to Portugal and Singapore because she loves travelling all over the world.

After that, she started working for the Swedish Trade and Invest Council. Her job was international market expansion for Sweden.

At that time, she managed a big event that the Swedish king and the president of Singapore met.

By the way, when did Moa start running?

I need to start talking about her young age. She started horse riding when she was 6 years old. When she lived in France, she won 4 times French championship and participated in the World championship. During those days, she rode a horse every day. Literally every day.

There is a person who rode a horse because he did modern pentathlon and he joined my online school. As far as I know he and Moa are the only persons who did horse riding around me.

She kept doing horse riding in Brazil. But when she came back to Sweden from Brazil, she needed to leave her horses in Brazil for some reasons.

After coming back to Sweden from Brazil, her heart was empty. Since she was 6 years old, she has done horse riding for more than 10 years everyday and suddenly it was gone. She felt she got a big hole in her mind.

After a while, running became her next passion. Her father was running and she joined him. They participated in many races all over the world.

However, at that time she was not a daily runner like most of my blog readers. She studied, worked and mostly ran only in weekends. She felt that running gets rid of a mental stress from her.

During those days, she got shin splint. She could not run. Then, she started using compression socks to loosen up muscles and decrease the pain. Just in case you don’t know what compression socks are, compression socks help us to pump blood into the heart, in other words increase the blood flow. With that being said, it increases recovery process (metabolism).

I also very often use compression socks. One of the reasons is that also my feet feel always cold. So, it helps me more than usual.

Long story short, she used compression socks because it helped her. But a lot of people asked her like ‘’Wow that looks cool! Where did you get it?’’ or ‘’You look so good with the socks! Where can I buy?’’.

She got interested in that people are interested in long socks for looking good. She thought ‘’Even though people don’t know what compression socks are, people are interested in compression socks. If I explain and introduce compression socks to people, many more people start using that’’.

So, she wanted to start up her own brand. And her father advised her to sell other running gears too, like shirts, tights, tops etc.

So, Nordic Tigon was born in this world.

In my country Japan, tiger and dragon are symbols of strength.

In fact, a tiger and a dragon are very strong. And then the question is, what if a tiger and a dragon shake hands and work together?

If a tiger and a dragon cooperate together, that becomes Tigon and if that comes from the North part of Europe, that becomes Nordic Tigon. Moa comes from Sweden, so the brand is Nordic Tigon.

And to advertise this brand more and make a platform that helps runners in many ways, she decided to run more seriously. She wanted to get faster and learn more about running. August in 2024, she started gathering more information about running, training and training more often by herself.

She got 5th place at the Kuala Lumpur Half marathon with time of 1:37 and got invited from a Kenyan coach to train with his athletes.

Moa was invited to Kenyan runners and the coach Thomas who is still current her coach. And she moved to their training camp in Taiwan and train there with Kenyan runners.

At the same time, she asked the Kenyan athletes to test her running wears Nordic Tigon which were not sold yet at that time to get feedback to improve the running gears.

Now she is in Shanghai and watches factories to prepare the launch and still trains with keeping in touch with her coach Thomas.

By the way, where money goes, people move to. Running world is not an exception. Especially, Kenya and Ethiopia are not rich countries and also most of the land is located at high altitudes where is impossible to make the fastest time. For these reasons, strong athletes go outside and run races which have relatively high prize money. Races in China have been attractive to Kenyan athlete at least for 10 years and nowadays races in other Asian countries are attractive too. Singapore is also one of them.

After all, Moa decided to quit working for the Swedish government and more focus on starting up Nordic Tigon and running in December in 2024. And already she ran Half Marathon 1:21.

I have thought for a long time that there are not many ways to live in Japan. I mean, most people live in a so-called normal life. I don’t think that that is bad. It is very good to have an order, safety and there is almost no fight between different tribes or religion. There are only few weird people in Japan.

Of course, there are criminals in Japan too. But the number is very low. And we don’t see someone who is drunk and says something nonsense in a park in the morning or screaming and drunk in a public area in the morning. There is no person who is drug addicted and walks around in a city like a zombie. There is no homeless who asks me ‘’Give me some money because I don’t have money for a bus’’ and go into an alcoholic store after I give him money.

Japan is definitely a good country and in order. While a lot of people get caught by the thought of being normal, from my point of view. For example, amateur runners care about whether they did athletics or not in their school days too much.

In other words, I feel very much that people get caught by the thought that our destiny is already determined. For example, if we don’t work for big companies, it is impossible to have a good life or if we did not do any sports in young ages, it is impossible to run fast after being an adult.

While I personally feel that that is a normal thought ‘’If you get your own way by the age of 30, it is OK’’ in the western society. Of course, an academic background is also important in the western world.

For example, in the USA, if you have a doctor, you can use it even when you book a hotel or flight ticket. I mean usually the booking name is Mr. Ikegami or Ms. Ikegami. But if I have a doctor, Dr. Ikegami is written in the ticket.

Even so, I personally feel atmosphere that it is OK if you get your own way by 30 in the western society.

Let us go back to the story about Moa and Jake. In this Japanese society people feel that it is already too late to work hard or train hard after being an adult, I hope Moa and jake give more hopes to amateur runners.

You would probably want to know more about her training strategy etc, then please click here to follow Moa on Instagram and send her a direct message ''Send me the link''. If it is not too late, you'll get the PDF file that Moa interviewed her Coach Thomas.

P.S

I met her in 2023 at Kuala Lumpur Half Marathon which we both were in top 3. I asked her to tell me her Instagram account and we got connected. However, we haven’t contacted each other for one year. And then suddenly I got a message from her. She said she ran the half marathon again and talked with a Japanese and she asked him if he knows about me. Then he replied to her that I am famous and everyone looks up to me in Japan.

That’s a really funny story. Stranger than a novel.

But we have a lot of things in common. She quit her very stable job and started up her own brand. I also chose to be an entrepreneur instead of working for a big company or becoming a teacher which means working for the Japanese government.

And yeah we made a decision to take a shot in running field. Similarities attract each other. This is the rule of this universe.

PPS

Moa lives currently in China. And She is not used to ‘’Family name comes first and own name comes second system’’. So, she asked me which one was the first name and which one was the last name (This is a very complicated question. Can I answer ‘’The first name is my last name''?).

So, I just replied ‘’Ikegami is my family name and Hideyuki is my own name and most people call me Ikegami because that is normal here in Japan’’. Then she asked me what she should have called me.

The head of a company is called a president in English but a word of captain just came out from my mouth. Right after that, I thought it was better to say general but it was too late. That is why she calls me now captain Ikegami.

By the way, I still have a very very very unclear memory from my former life. I worked for the peace in the East Asia. However, I wasn’t in a cold place like Manchuria, North part of the China or island Attu. I wasn’t in islands in the Pacific Ocean like Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Papua new genuia, Rabaul or Palau. I was in somewhere in China, Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia or Indonesia.

I was not a navy or pilot but an infantry. In the end of the war, I got an order. I was going to go to general Yamashita in Philippine to fight against MacArthur of the USA. I got on a transport ship and then we got attacked by a torpedo from the US navy. My former life was over.

I wasn’t a private, colonel or general but a captain. That means I led about 70-250 soldiers. In this life, I think all I can manage is about 100 workers. Even only 100 workers, it is difficult to educate all of them well even though I try to use online school to educate workers to get the process easier.

So maybe captain is for me. I will take care of 100 workers well instead of having 100,000 workers and become a general.