うたぴょんスポーツMerry Christmas from our house. We didn't take the day off — Uta had track practice, like most days, and I filmed it along with a bit of Christmas news we wanted to share with everyone who follows her.
No race this time. Just a normal practice day that happened to fall on December 25th.
How the day went
It was Christmas Day, 2025, but Uta still went to track practice. She's nine years old, born early in 2016, which in Japan means she's in a lower grade than kids born just a few months earlier — something that matters a lot at this age. She seemed in good spirits, treating it like any other training day even with the holiday going on around her.
The practice itself
This was a regular track session, not a competition. We filmed her going through her usual work. There's no race result to report here — the video is about the day-to-day grind that doesn't stop just because it's a holiday.
What's worth noting is where that grind has gotten her. For the 2024 season, Uta ranked 10th nationally among third-grade girls in the 1000m. That's the kind of number that only means something because of days like this one — ordinary practices, repeated.
What a parent took away from it
Watching her train on Christmas, what struck me is how normal it's become for her. She doesn't ask for the day off. I try not to make a big deal of it either — I just set up the camera and let her do her thing.
If there's a lesson for me as a parent, it's this: consistency is the whole story. A national ranking doesn't come from one good race, it comes from showing up on days like December 25th without being told to. My job right now is mostly just making sure she still wants to.
Anything left over that matters
A few other things from this video worth mentioning. Uta recently appeared on Nsuta, a Japanese TV news program, alongside another young runner — that clip is linked in the original description if you want to see it.
We're also doing a small Christmas giveaway: Uta has outgrown some of her running shoes, and we're giving them away through her Instagram, utapyon_sports. If you want a pair, the instructions are in the comments there. And for anyone who's been asking, there's also an Uta T-shirt available through her online shop.
Next up for her is more of the same — practice, a few local races lined up for the new year, and hopefully some snow days she still has to run through anyway.
The video itself is a quiet one: Christmas track practice, a shoe giveaway, and a nine-year-old who doesn't really do rest days.