Our Town Inagi 2022: Mitsuki Takahashi

9th place finish in the Spartan Race Japan Championship! Selected for the Japan national team!

Kaito Takahashi (23), a member of SPARTAN DREAMERS (a professional team of Spartan Race), placed 9th in the men's elite category at the Spartan Race Japan Championship held at GALA Yuzawa Ski Resort on September 17, and was selected for the national team.
The Spartan Race, known as the "world's toughest obstacle race," is a competition where participants run distances of 5 to 21 km and overcome 20 to 30 obstacles (including carrying a 40 kg weight, rope climbs, crawling under barbed wire, and many others) while competing for rankings. The men's elite division, in which Mr. Takahashi participated, involved a 21 km run and multiple obstacles, featuring a grueling course that included climbing up and down ski slopes.

Encounter with the Spartan Race

I continued track and field aiming to participate in the Hakone Ekiden, but decided to retire from competition due to an injury that I suffered for five and a half years during my second year of university. At that time, I happened to find the Spartan Race on a video site and became interested. I achieved second place out of 3,600 participants in my first open race and felt that I could aim for a higher level, so I began training seriously. After that, I took a two-year leave of absence from university to continue training and developed my skills to the point of being selected for the national team. Currently, I belong to a professional Spartan Race team while attending Tokyo Metropolitan University, and I also established the Leonidas Running Club Inagi, where I coach children's running and adult running. After finishing university and work, I practice running and carrying weights in parks and other places in the city.

The Appeal and Goals of the Spartan Race

When I asked Mr. Takahashi about the appeal of the competition, he smiled and said, "Spartan races are fun like an athletic event, both in practice and in competition. There are many highlights such as tough obstacles, but I want you to see the way the athletes encourage each other as they aim to finish the race."
Finally, I asked Mr. Takahashi about his future goals. He spoke passionately, saying, "I want to win first, not just in Japanese races. And I want more people to know about the sport of Spartan racing."
Mr. Takahashi will participate in the world championship held in the United Arab Emirates on December 3 as a representative of Japan. He expressed his determination, saying, "I will do my best to aim for the highest rank for a Japanese." We are very excited to see him shine on the world stage.