COMPANY OF HEROES 3 PACIFIC TRIAL

Until recently, he worked for the tourism board in the ski resort town of Hakuba while pursuing his mountain guide certifications and building a family with his wife, who is Japanese, and newborn son. “Preparing to enter this race is all I dream and think about,” Deckret told me from across a short table, sitting on the floor of a steamy Japanese barbeque in March of 2021. Roaming amongst the crowd is Paul Deckret, a 42-year-old American expat from Oklahoma who established permanent residency in Japan after arriving in 2003 to teach English. Most of the runners have been preparing for years and to blow this opportunity would be crushing. Officials watch a runner lay out his 27 mandatory items. Once they successfully complete the morning’s gear and paperwork check, their cell phones are taped and stapled inside a plastic case, and the runners are given non-waterproof paper maps of the area, which they’ll use to orienteer the 49-mile course by compass. To reach this event, runners also presented evidence of their completion of an advanced lifesaving course, a doctor’s certificate of health including bloodwork, and a letter of consent from their spouse or a close relative, among other documents. The 27-item mandatory gear list includes two headlamps with spare batteries, a compass, a mountain insurance card, a tent shelter (can’t be a bivy sack), a basic first aid kit, a gas stove and lighter with a minimum 300ml pot, rubber caps for trekking pole tips, an emergency locator beacon, and two wag bags (portable toilet kits). Officials in orange vests with clipboards inspect the contents of each runner’s pack, splayed out across a labeled tarp like a game of Twister. The Athlete Selection Event begins the next morning-a dark and rainy 2:30 a.m.-with the gear check. He’s racked up nearly 230,000 feet of elevation gain in the first half of 2022 alone, which he says is low because he’d been training on flat land so much for marathons.

Since March, he’s done a 100K training run every weekend, sometimes squeezing in a 50K before work and a marathon on his lunch break. Everyone’s eyeballs bulge and they all let out different tones of “Ooooo!” in exaggerated amazement. One of them, Yusuke Hayashida from Tokyo, pulls up Kimura’s Strava profile on his phone and passes it around.

“This training is taking a toll on me physically,” Kimura says as the others crammed in around him shake their heads and chuckle. The reward is gaining entry into the exclusive clique of finishers. Just to cross the finish line is considered a badge of honor, so no racers, even first-place winners, receive prize money or trophies. Fuji from sea level seven times within eight consecutive days, entirely self-supported, and in August-the muggiest time of year at the peak of Japan’s typhoon season. That’s the equivalent of running up and down 12,388-foot Mt. Those who qualify for the TJAR then get to race 256 miles south from the Sea of Japan to the Pacific Ocean, crossing three prefectures and three mountain ranges with 88,600 feet of elevation gain and descent.

COMPANY OF HEROES 3 PACIFIC TRIAL

With 60 available spots, 59 runners gained entry to the two-day trial and were informed one month in advance. Roughly 70 applicants submitted documentation of their attempts to meet the requirements, which among many other things, included camping at least 10 nights above 6,562 feet (2,000 meters) and completing a race with an event time cutoff of 25 hours or more in less than 60 percent of that time. The encyclopedic rabbit hole of entry requirements and necessary physical achievements is so demanding and convoluted that qualifying for one of the 30 spots in the actual race might be more impressive, and dangerous, than finishing it. They’ve each run a sub-3:20 marathon in the past year (most sub-3:00), a feat that satisfies one of the many prerequisites to even be invited to tomorrow’s Athlete Selection Event, a two-day qualifier for the biennial Trans Japan Alps Race (TJAR) in August. Most of the men are rail-thin with muscular legs, and several are wearing T-shirts from 100-mile races.

It’s a cool, damp June evening, and cheery garden gnomes are perched on a windowsill holding tools and politely observing the conversation. I promised my wife this is the last time I try…It’s a touchy subject.” The 41-year-old inventory manager at a tractor company in Osaka is sitting at a cramped restaurant table with five other men eating the same dish in the lush, wooded town of Komagane in the valley splitting Japan’s Southern and Central Alps.

“My life is getting shorter,” says Naomasa Kimura over a fried pork cutlet rice bowl drizzled in a sweet and savory sauce.

Company of heroes 3 pacific