Hello everyone. Time flies and it's already November. There are only two months left in the year. We at milestone are pleased to announce that we have recently added a new employee to our team.

Naofumi Yoshida: 42 years old. Some of you may know him, but he is a fellow runner who runs on "Budouzaka" every Wednesday, and is also one of the project members of BAMBI100.

From left: Mr. Toyoda, Mr. Yoshida, Mr. Doi, Mr. Fukuyama, and Mr. Nishioka

Yoshida has been actively supporting milestone's work for a long time and has been involved in development behind the scenes. It's reassuring to have such a reliable helper join the team, and I think we'll be able to continue to provide great products and services to everyone.

Past race results: Completed UTMF (2022), completed KOUMI100 (2020)

In the Northern Alps (from left): Nakae, Yoshida, Bando, Motoyama, and Nishioka

Photo taken at Mt. Utsugi: From left: Mr. Nakae and Mr. Yoshida

Omine Okukakedo 2021: From left, Nishioka, Yoshida, Motoyama, Tateishi, Muramura, Nakae

We received a greeting from Mr. Yoshida, so please see below.

Hello, my name is Yoshida and I will be joining the Milestone project from November.
I enjoy mountain climbing, trail running, and fastpacking, and in the future I would like to try bikepacking, stream climbing, and stream fishing.
I would like to share the experience I gained there on this blog.
This is my first post, so I'd like to briefly introduce myself.
I was born in the countryside of Kojima-gun, Okayama Prefecture, and devoted myself to soccer from elementary school until I graduated from high school.
As a reaction to that, I started playing music at university, but I still couldn't forget the joy of kicking a ball.
After entering the workforce, I devoted myself to futsal and played in the Kansai League until I was 29 years old.
Just looking at this, it seems like he can run really well, but in fact he is terrible at running and his only position is goalkeeper lol.
So although I've run seven 100-mile races, I've never run a full marathon.
(I don't think I'll be running any more)
I was fascinated by the mountains and nature, and I participated in trail races in various regions as a way of traveling and climbing, when I was in a 100-mile race.
I learned that there are races that go over crazy distances.
I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could run such an incredible distance! So in 2018, I ran 111 laps around a 1,450m track in a nearby park. Below is the record of my run.
At the time, the longest race I had ever completed was 58km, took 10 hours, and I estimated my running ability to be about 4 hours for a full marathon.
I felt comfortable running at 6 minutes 30 seconds per kilometer, so I set this as my target pace, and estimated my finishing time to be 7 minutes 30 seconds, 8 minutes 30 seconds, and so on, assuming that my pace would drop to 7 minutes 30 seconds or 8 minutes 30 seconds every 50 kilometers.
I set it to 20 to 21 hours. As for replenishment, I wasn't sure if I could keep eating gels for that long, and the pace was slow, so
I decided to have some persimmon-pei and rice balls, which I always had on my mountain hikes, when I felt hungry.
Thinking about it now, there are only things to criticize, lol, but at the time I planned and carried this out very seriously, and the results were roughly as follows.


*Starting at 12 noon in January 2018
~10km, 1 hour later. I'm pushing myself a little, but I'm still full of energy.
~20km, 2 hours later. My legs are getting tired, but I can still run.
~30km, 3.5 hours later. First stop for food. Kakipi is hard to eat.
40km, 5 hours later. My pace has dropped dramatically, exceeding the full marathon pace.
~50km 6.5 hours passed. I refueled with rice balls. I can't eat any more persimmons.
~60km, 8 hours passed. I'm grateful for the support runners.
70km, 9.5 hours later. I was shocked to find I wasn't even halfway there. My pace had dropped to about 8:30 per kilometer.
~80km 11 hours passed. I was given a soup kitchen and felt a little better.
~90km, 13 hours passed. I was feeling sleepy. I took a short nap on a park bench, but it was so cold I woke up after 10 minutes. ~100km, 16 hours passed. The water bottle was frozen from the cold. I was running meanderingly due to sleepiness and pain in my legs.
~110km 18 hours have passed. It's getting lighter and I feel a little less sleepy. The pain in my legs is getting worse.
~120km 20 hours passed. Almost all of the walking was done. The walking pace also slowed down considerably. I ate rice balls to replenish my energy.
~130km 22 hours later. I started to be overtaken by elderly people walking.
~140km 24 hours have passed. I'm not making any progress. I realize I can eat Weider In Jelly.
~150km 27 hours later. Finally, I was overtaken by an old man in a cart. I walked while dragging my limp leg.
I reached the finish line in 29 hours and 44 minutes after completing the 160km course. My legs were swollen and it was hard to walk or sit. But I felt great.

By the way, there was a famous trail runner who challenged 100 miles with me at the time and finished the race quickly.
I now have even stronger ties with my friends who came to cheer me on at the start and finish, who helped me run and prepare meals for me.
We became friends with a strong bond who enjoyed playing in the mountains.
I post about my experiences and feelings in the mountains, including the challenges mentioned above, so if you're interested, please take a look at my Instagram account. ( @nao_yoshida0804 )