うたぴょんスポーツUta is nine, born early in 2016, and she's been chasing her times all year. On December 7th she lined up for the Sainokuni Ekiden, a local track-club relay named after Saitama's old nickname, 'the rainbow-colored country'. Saitama sits just north of Tokyo.
What made this one different is that she'd only come off the flu two weeks earlier. She hadn't trained much in between.
How the day went
Two weeks out from the flu is not much time to get back into race shape, and we both knew it going in. She didn't complain about it, though. She warmed up with her team like always, running leg one of the four-leg relay. If she was nervous about her fitness, she didn't say so out loud before the gun went.
The race itself
Uta ran the first leg, handing off to her team-mate who took leg two, then the third and fourth runners carried it home. No big disaster on the course — she got through her leg and passed the sash. But afterward she broke down in tears, saying she felt like she'd caused trouble for the team because she hadn't been able to train properly before the race.
That was the real story of the day, more than any split time. A nine-year-old who'd just been sick, worried she'd let everyone else down.
What a parent took away from it
I told her the team doesn't run ekiden to punish anyone for getting the flu. Nobody was upset with her — she was upset with herself, which is a different thing, and a harder one to argue her out of. Kids this age often hold themselves to a standard no coach would ever ask for.
What I want to work on with her next isn't fitness. It's how she talks to herself after a hard day. If she comes off a course short on training and still finishes her leg, that's not letting anyone down. I'd rather she hear that from me calmly than have her decide it on her own, crying, in the minutes right after a race.
Anything left over that matters
She's currently ranked 10th nationally among third-grade girls over 1000m for the 2024 school year, which is part of why she pushes herself so hard even when she's not at her best. She's also had a brief moment on NHK's Nsuta news program, caught on camera alongside another young runner — a small reminder that people are watching, which maybe adds to the pressure she puts on herself.
Next up is just getting her back to full training, no rush. The flu cost her some conditioning, not her spot on the team, and I want her to feel that difference clearly before the next race.
The video has her full leg-one run, the other three legs from her team-mates, and the tears afterward — worth watching if you want to see what nine-year-old honesty looks like after a hard effort.