Bizarre Japanese TV Show Is All About Women Running Up Steep Streets

Having been running for the last 15 years, TV Asahi’s Zenryokuzaka is one of Japan’s most longstanding television shows, which is a bit strange considering its simple premise.

Every night at 1:20 a.m., Monday to Thursday, thousands of people tune in to TV Asahi to watch the latest episode of Zenryokuzaka, a bizarre show featuring women running up steep streets. Each episode lasts no more than six minute, including the opening and closing credits, and focuses solely on following the protagonist as she runs up the street. It’s an extremely simplistic concept, even for late-night TV, but one that has somehow remained popular in Japan for the last 15 years.

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70-Year-Old Pensioner Has Completed Over 100 Marathons in the Last 20 Years

A 70-year-old Chinese woman has been dubbed “Super Grannie” after it was revealed that she is an avid runner, with over 100 marathons completed in the last two decades.

Most people choose to take it easy after they retire, but Liaoning-based Wang Lang is definitely not one of them. She only started running at the age of 50, as a way to keep in shape, but soon realized it was her passion. She ran her first marathon in 2004 and hasn’t stopped since, racking over 100 completed marathons under her belt. From 2005 to 2017 she completed the annual Beijing Marathon thirteen times, and this year she set a new record, becoming the oldest person to ever complete the 168-kilometer Liaoning marathon, within some 40 hours.

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Spanish Man Runs 61 Kilometers While Confined in His Own Small Apartment

In an effort to prove that been confined or quarantined indoors during the coronavirus pandemic is no excuse for neglecting daily exercise, a Spanish athlete recently spent ten hours running a 61-kilometer marathon in the comfort of his own home.

Like the vast majority of people in his country and much of Europe, Javier Castroverde, a 41-year-old triathlete from the Spanish region of Galicia, has been spending his days indoors, as part of a social distancing effort to slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus. However, instead of binging on Netflix, napping and going on social media, he has been busy keeping in shape. Despite being confined to a relatively small apartment, Castroverde was able to run the equivalent of a 61-km marathon in about 10 hours. He shared the data recorded by a smartphone app and dedicated his feat to the health professionals risking their lives to help others.

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Quarantined Marathon Runner in China Jogs 50 Km in His Apartment

The coronavirus wreaking havoc in China right now has really turned things upside down for a lot of people, but not even it can come between a marathon runner and their training.

Like many of his countrymen, Pan Shancu, an amateur marathon runner from Hangzhou, in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang, is trapped in his apartment because of the coronavirus epidemic, but he didn’t let that small detail stop him from keeping in shape for his next race, whenever it may be. He has been using the small space in his apartment as a miniature track, jogging around two tables and the short length of a small hallway, and recently posted on social media that he had covered a distance of 50 kilometers (31 miles).

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Runners Compete in World’s Coldest Race at -52 Degrees Celsius

Sixteen brave runners recently gathered in the Russian village of Oymyakon, also known as the world’s pole of cold,  to compete in the coldest official race in history.

Oymyakon is the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth, with temperatures constantly dropping to under -50 degrees Celsius in winter time. This place is so cold that a person’s unprotected face can suffer frostbite in a matter of seconds, and sometimes the mercury in thermometers freezes. Oymyakon can barely be called inhabitable, let alone suitable for a marathon, and yet at the beginning of this year, 16 runners gathered here to take part in a series of extreme races.

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Man Spends 409 Days Recreating Forrest Gump’s 15,000 Mile Run Across America

In Robert Zemeckis’ 1994 film Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks’ character is supposed to have run a total of 15,248 miles coast-to-coast across America, after being left heartbroken by his childhood sweetheart, Jenny. It seems like an impossible challenge in real life, but someone actually managed to break Forrest’s record by running a total of 15,600 miles in 409 days.

Rob Pope, a 39-year-old veteran from Liverpool, in the UK, spent over a year of his life recreating Forrest Gump’s epic coast-to-coast trek across the United States, an amazing four times. He quit his job in order to complete this monumental challenge in four stages, and has been running an average of 40 miles a day through blistering heat, torrential rain and weather so cold it froze his beard. Despite suffering several major physical injuries throughout his epic run, and repetition and loneliness straining his mental health, Pope says quitting was never an option.

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Experienced Ultramarathon Runner Is Stripped Of His Titles After Investigation Reveals He Won Races by Hiding in Portable Toilets

Ultrarunner Kelly Agnew, 45, has been disgraced and stripped of his titles after an investigation by event officials revealed that he had hidden inside porta-pottys to win races.

Agnew had one the last four 48-hour Across the Years ultramarathons since 2014, when he was the first to run 201.5 miles within the allotted time, but event officials have disqualified and banned him from all future races for cheating. According to a Facebook post by event organizers, Agnew was seen “registering laps without running the complete loop of the course,” instead hiding inside a port-a-potty for seven minutes before getting out to cross the start/finish mat. The experienced runner would apparently time his breaks in the toilet to keep his mile pace consistent.

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Man Wins 23-Kilometer Race He Ran in His Socks

Ibrahim Mukunga Wachira, a 27-year-old marathon runner from Kenya, became an overnight sensation in the small Baltic country of Estonia, after winning the 35th annual Tartu Half-Marathon, a 23-kilometer race he ran in his socks.

Just last week, we wrote about the monumental achievement of María Lorena Ramírez, a native Rarámuri woman from Mexico, who won a 50-kilometer ultramarathon in rubber sandals made from used car tires and wearing a long traditional skirt. Today, we cover the amazing story of a man who not only won a 23-kilometer marathon in Estonia, but also set a new speed record, after running with no shoes on. It’s definitely an incredible time for sports, and running in particular.

 

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Mexican Woman Wearing Long Skirt and Rubber Sandals Wins 50 Km Ultramarathon

People usually train for years and invest in professional running gear just to be able to complete an ultramarathon, but María Lorena Ramírez, a native Rarámuri woman from Mexico who had not have any professional training or even basic gear, not only managed to finish a 50 km race, but actually win it. And she did it wearing a traditional long skirt and sandals made of recycled tire rubber.

High quality running shoes, compression socks, Lycra suits, energy drinks, all these are considered essential by most runners participating in an ultramarathon, but they were of no importance to 22-year-old María Lorena Ramírez, a sheep herder from Chihuahua, Mexico, who showed up at the starting line of a women’s ultramarathon in Puebla in traditional clothing and equipped with just a bottle of water and a handkerchief. She stood out like a sore thumb among the 500 or so other runners from 12 countries around the world, but she didn’t seem to care.

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Beer Mile Race Proves Running and Beer Go Well Together

Well, not always, as having to chug beers between multiple 400-meter laps can upset the stomach, but that’s all part of the charm of the Beer Mile, a unique race that has participants competing in running and drinking.

The beer mile started off as a frat tradition in 1990, when a group of Canadian thought it would be fun to race each other while chugging a few beers. But it has come a long way since then, as the Beer Mile Race is now a major sporting event with around 100,000 official entries, brand name sponsorships, and extensive media coverage. In 2015, the first Beer Mile World Classic was held in San Francisco, where all of the record holders from Canada and the United States came together for an epic showdown, but this year, the event was organized in London, in an effort to raise awareness about the sport outside North America.

The rules of the race are pretty straightforward – runners have to consume four beers before each of the four 400-meter laps making up the famous Beer Mile. The beers can come in bottles or cans but should not be less than 355ml in volume and must be at least 5% alcohol by volume. Ciders or radlers (beer and lemonade) will not do, the beverage of choice must be a hard beer brewed from malted cereal grains and flavored with hops. Runners must chug the beers within a “transition area” – a 10 meter zone before the start/finish line on a 400m track – and are advised to tip the bottle/can over their heads to confirm it’s empty.

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Rare Genetic Condition Allows 53-Year-Old to Run 350 Miles without Stopping

Most athletes would agree that lactic acid build-up in the muscles is the bane of all long-distance runners – but not American jogger Dean Karnazes. The 53-year-old has a rare genetic condition that rapidly flushes lactic acid from his system, allowing him to run indefinitely without ever experiencing a cramp or a seized muscle. The extreme runner has completed a marathon to the South Pole at -25C, and completed 50 back to back marathons in 50 days. He’s also jogged a whopping 350 miles in just 80 hours and 44 minutes, without any sleep!

When people exercise, glucose is converted into energy and a by-product of this reaction is lactic acid. As it builds up in the muscles, it causes cramps and fatigue, and signals the brain to stop. But in Dean’s case, he never receives those signals because lactic acid never builds up in his muscles. So he’s able to run for long distances over very long periods of time, giving him an edge in some of the toughest endurance competitions in the world.

“At a certain level of intensity, I do feel like I can go a long way without tiring,” Dean said, speaking to The Guardian. “No matter how hard I push, my muscles never seize up. That’s kind of a nice thing if I plan to run a long way. To be honest, what eventually happens is that I get sleepy. I’ve run through three nights without sleep and the third night of sleepless running was a bit psychotic. I actually experienced bouts of ‘sleep running’, where I was falling asleep while in motion, and I just willed myself to keep going.”

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Man Runs 370 Marathons in One Year, Proves Nothing Is Impossible

For most people, running one or two full marathons a year is quite the feat,  but for 33-year-old Rob Young it’s merely a short warm-up. This British superhuman did the unthinkable last year, completing a whopping 370 marathons, which basically means he ran more than one marathon per day!

It all started as a silly bet with his partner Joanna Hanasz on a Sunday morning, in April 2014, as they watched the TV coverage of the London Marathon. It was, in fact, Young who had insisted that he’d rather stay in and watch TV than go for a walk in the park with their son. He obviously wasn’t very interested in running at the time, and actually considered it ‘boring’.

But something changed that morning, when Hanasz teased him that he couldn’t run marathons, even if he tried. Young jokingly replied that he would bet her ‘twenty pence’ that he could run 50, a challenge that he later took seriously. The very next morning he woke up at 3.30 am, printed out the route of the Richmond Marathon, and completed it before work. And he felt so good that he returned to it every day, running the equivalent of 10 marathons by the end of the week.

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The Inspirational Story of a 545-Pound Man Running 5K Races Like There’s No Tomorrow

Meet Derek Mitchell, an inspiring 35-year-old race runner who weighs a whopping 545 pounds. Despite his heavy frame, he’s spent the past year walking and running a total of 21 5k races and two 10k events. He even made it halfway through a muddy, 10-mile obstacle course!

Mitchell, a Kansas City native, was diagnosed with a noncancerous tumor on his pituitary gland five years ago, a condition that slows down his metabolism and is the primary cause for his obesity. Although he was put on medication to shrink the tumor, Mitchell felt that “at one point, I was using that condition as a crutch, telling myself, ‘I’ll wait for the pills to start working before I start working out or change my eating habits.’”

But he realised that wasn’t a very good plan in November 2014, when his body weight reached an all-time high of 625 pounds. “That’s when I knew I needed to make a change, and decided to start with a new year’s resolution.” So in the beginning of 2015, he cut soda from his diet, switched to more nutritious food options, and tried switching to a healthier lifestyle.

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Student Inspired by Forrest Gump Plans 3,200-Mile Coast-to-Coast Run

American student Barclay Oudersluys is making headlines for attempting a 100-day coast-to-coast run, inspired by the movie Forrest Gump. He set off on the epic journey on Saturday, from California’s Santa Monica Yacht Harbor and Pier, and he plans to reach Marshall Point Lighthouse in Maine at the end of 100 days. That’s a total of 3,200 miles, with 32 miles to cover per day.

Barclay is calling his attempt ‘Project Gump’, as it was inspired by the protagonist of the 1994 film Forrest Gump. Although the route covered by Tom Hanks’s character isn’t completely revealed in the movie, Barclay has managed to chart a course quite similar to it, by studying contextual clues.

“I don’t really know what made me want to do it,” he said. “Forrest Gump is my favorite movie. And so when I decided to do this run, I looked up the two points where he had gone to and decided then.” The course he’s charted will take him through California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

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The Inspiring Story of Tony the Fridge, the Man Who Runs Full Marathons with a Fridge on His Back

Tony ‘the fridge’ Phoenix-Morrison got his name from his unique way of running marathons – with a fridge strapped to his back. Yes, a real refrigerator. Why on earth would anyone want to do that, you ask? Well, for Tony, this is a way to gain people’s attention so he can raise money for charity.

“My friends knew I was an ultra-runner, so trying to raise money by just running the Great North Run wasn’t getting me anywhere,” said the 49-year-old marketing manager from South Tyneside, in the UK. “So I thought about something different. I wanted an extreme challenge, something that would push me to my limits. In 2011, I told everyone I was running with a fridge and the world went mad for it! I ended up on the news in 17 different countries over night.”

Contrary to expectations, Tony isn’t really trying to show off his strength by running with the 42 kg Smeg Fridge. “I hate the fridge,” he insisted. “It starts off tough, then gets impossible. I don’t put it on for show. I should never have ran with the fridge because I was injured when I began. I went running with kettle bells in a rucksack and it swung everywhere, damaging my lower back.” According to Tony, there is no other way to prepare for the physically grueling marathon than by being mentally strong.

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