The Road to a Champion

I have been running on the coastal road near a minshuku (guest house) used for training camps consistently, since the time I was active as a pro boxer. Since opening my gym I have been visiting the area as a location for training camps every year as well. World champions Katsushige Kawashima and Akira Yaegashi have also trained on this road, so it is “a road to the world,” in a manner of speaking. We always run this road prior to a world title bout. In training, we run up steep mountain roads to mountaintops. We run at a fast pace and scale the mountain in one go. In the evenings we borrow a playing field and train with short-distance sprints, but this location is home to the sea and to mountains, and because it is full of variety you never grow tired of it.
Boxing is a battle with yourself. When running here, we don’t see this as jogging, we see this as training. So you run while firing yourself up, reminding yourself that if you drop your pace here your opponent will win. Without intending to, midway up hills you tend to ease up, but this ploy is a dead giveaway: the results show up starkly in the running times. I have been running this road myself for a long time and there are a few spots where runners slacken off. And so when I take young boxers here to train, I keep a close eye on spots like that.
Ito is near to the sea and mountains. The air is clean and the food is also delicious. There is a boxing gym close by as well, so the environment is exceptional. I have been training here constantly for 25 years and there is no question that running this road is perfect training. Running involves doing the same thing over and over. By setting yourself small goals repeatedly — “if I can just run to that hotel, if I can just make it to that corner…” — before you know it, you have reached your goal. This road trains you physically but it also does a lot for your mental discipline.