うたぴょんスポーツOn February 1, 2026, Uta ran the Ogose Ume no Sato Chibikko Ekiden, a kids' road relay held in Ogose, a small town in Saitama north of Tokyo known for its plum blossoms. An ekiden is a relay where each runner carries a tasuki, a sash, and hands it off to the next team-mate at the end of their leg.
Uta is nine years old, born in early 2016, and she races in the under-4th-grade girls' division. Going in, the video title said it plainly: she wanted to beat the boys too.
How the day went
Uta's team ran in the under-4th-grade girls' division at the Ogose Ume no Sato Chibikko Ekiden. They didn't just win the division — every single leg of the race came in as a new section record, and the team's overall time set a new tournament record too. That's a clean sweep: fastest on every stage, fastest overall.
For a nine-year-old, carrying a tasuki means more than running your own split. You're racing against a clock that your team-mates set before you, and you're handing something physical to the next kid waiting at the exchange zone. Watching her take the sash and go, I could see she understood the weight of it — not just finishing her leg, but not being the one who lost time for everyone else.
The 'want to beat the boys' line in the title wasn't just a catchy hook. Uta's been chasing that goal in training for a while, and a day like this — records on every leg — is the kind of result that tells her the work is landing, even if the specific boys-versus-girls matchup wasn't the headline result of this particular race.
She's already shown she can run with fast company; she placed 10th nationally in the 1000m for third-grade girls in the 2024 season rankings. This ekiden was a different kind of test — not a solo time, but four or five kids trusting each other with one sash.
What a parent took away from it
Team races are a different kind of pressure for a kid than solo races. In an individual 1000m, if Uta has a rough day, it's her rough day. In an ekiden, she's carrying time that isn't only hers. Before the race I didn't talk about winning. I talked about running her own leg clean and trusting the hand-off — the rest of the team would take care of the rest.
What struck me afterward is that the team record wasn't one fast leg carrying everyone else. Every stage was a new record. That tells me the prep — the exchange practice, the pacing talks, everyone knowing their job — actually mattered, not just raw speed on the day.
Going forward, the thing to keep working on isn't speed, it's handling the exchange zone calmly — taking the tasuki without losing a step, and not panicking if the runner ahead is a few seconds off what was planned. That's a skill separate from fitness, and it's one she can only build by racing more relays like this one.
Next up, we're looking at more road races this spring as she keeps building toward longer distances. For now, a clean sweep with a sash in her hand is a good way to start February.
The video shows the full relay, her leg, and the tasuki hand-off at Ogose.