Fuji Mountain Race 2026: Running 21KM and Climbing 3,000M to the Summit of Mount Fuji
- Alex
- Aug 4
- 12 min read
Mount Fuji and I are becoming pretty familiar with one another.
I’ve raced up it a couple of times, hiked through the night to watch the sunrise (insane views by the way) and visited/ran up to the summit outside of race days. But regardless of how many times I return, standing at the bottom of the mountain and knowing that I’m about to summit the highest point in Japan still feels pretty surreal.
On Friday, July 24, I lined up for the Fuji Mountain Race in Fujiyoshida. The full Summit Course begins at Fujiyoshida City Hall and takes runners 21 kilometres from the city to the top of Mount Fuji, climbing roughly 3,000 metres along the way!!
There are no descents to recover on and very few places to relax. You start at the bottom, point yourself towards the mountain and keep climbing until you reach the summit at 3,776 metres. What an absolutely ridiculous thing to choose to do for fun lol.
Travelling From Tokyo to Fujiyoshida by Local Train
Because the race was on a Friday morning, I naturally travelled down the day before so I could settle in, organise everything and feel as relaxed as possible before the start.
Normally, my race trips involve a Shinkansen or some other high-speed train, but this time I discovered that I could get from my house in Kōenji to Fujiyoshida using a handful of local trains. I didn’t actually realise you could travel all the way out there like that, so I decided to give it a go.
I left sometime around 11 in the morning and slowly made my way out through western Tokyo. As the train continued, the city buildings gradually disappeared and were replaced by smaller towns, green mountains and much quieter, local, stations.
It took a few hours, but I really enjoyed the journey. There’s something nice about travelling slowly through Japan and watching the scenery change outside the window.
I arrived in Fujiyoshida at 2pm and began walking towards my accommodation, which was only about 500 metres from the station. Before I even made it there, though, I passed a small Japanese sweet shop selling taiyaki.
Naturally, I stopped.
I bought two: one filled with red bean paste and another with lemon custard. The lemon custard was particularly good, and for a few minutes I thought I had shown an impressive amount of self-control by only buying two... Then I reached my accommodation and discovered the bakery.
A Very Questionable Pre-Race Bakery Carb Load
For context, I’m normally extremely disciplined with my food. I follow a meal plan, eat the same meals at the same times each day and pay attention to my portion sizes and macros so my body has everything it needs to perform.
I don’t necessarily count every single calorie, but there is a lot of structure to the way I eat. I train hard, so I make sure my nutrition, sleep and recovery are all taken seriously.
Apparently, however, all of that discipline disappears the moment I unexpectedly stumble across a Japanese bakery.
I walked inside and bought around five different pastries and breads. There was a red bean and whipped cream bun, a chocolate melon pan, another melon pan with a maple-flavoured crust and a couple of other bread or donut-type creations that looked far too good to leave behind.
Normally, I might save that kind of bakery attack for after the race, but I couldn’t contain myself. Instead, I completely disregarded months of hard training and told myself that eating half the bakery was simply part of my pre-race carb load.
That was obviously a big old lie.
But it was the lie I chose to believe at the time.
It’s quite funny because I can be incredibly disciplined every day for weeks, then something spontaneous happens, like stumbling across a neighbourhood bakery in Fujiyoshida, and suddenly the floodgates open and I’m completely all in.
Peak athlete behaviour.
Or perhaps the complete opposite...
Exploring the Fuji Mountain Race Course
After demolishing most of the bread and pastries, I decided that a veryy long walk was probably necessary. Partly because I wanted to loosen my legs after several hours on the train, but mostly because I felt like I needed to walk off all the bread I had just consumed.
I headed towards Fujiyoshida City Hall to have a look at the race starting area, then continued walking along part of the opening section of the Fuji Mountain Race course.
I always enjoy visiting the start line the day before a race. It makes the event feel real and gives me a chance to picture what the following morning will look like before thousands of runners arrive.
The race begins in the middle of Fujiyoshida before gradually heading out of town and towards Mount Fuji. Along the way, runners pass beneath the large torii gates that mark the approach to the mountain before eventually leaving the roads behind and joining the Yoshida climbing/hiking trail.
I walked up towards the first torii gate and stood there for a while, thinking about the course ahead. At that point, I was still surrounded by houses, shops, roads and normal city life. The next morning, though, I would start at the city hall and keep moving until I reached the very top of the mountain.
Twenty-one kilometres away and almost 3,000 metres above me.
After wandering around Fujiyoshida for a while, I found a lovely little izakaya for dinner. I ordered an oyakodon set, along with some extra food on the side because apparently five pastries and two taiyaki weren’t quite enough.
Oyakodon is sometimes described as a parent-and-child bowl because it combines chicken and egg over rice, which is a little dark when you think about it too carefully. It was absolutely delicious, though, and exactly the kind of comforting Japanese meal I wanted the night before a race!
The weather was incredibly hot and humid, so once I finished dinner, I headed back to my accommodation, organised my gear and tried to relax before the early start the following morning.
Race Morning and My Decision Not to Taper
My preparation for the Fuji Mountain Race hadn’t exactly followed a traditional taper.
I had completed a hard Hyrox session on Tuesday night and continued with my normal intervals at the track on Wednesday and then gym training during the week. It wasn’t that I had forgotten to taper, I simply didn’t really want to interrupt my normal routine again.
I’ve been racing a lot lately, and I don’t particularly enjoy constantly changing my eating, sleeping and training every time another event comes around. I like being consistent, and recently I’ve preferred to continue training through races rather than treating every single one like the main event of the year.
But I’m also beginning to realise that this probably means I’m racing too often.
Perhaps the answer next year isn’t to taper more regularly. Perhaps it’s to choose fewer races and then give the most important ones the proper preparation they deserve.
That’s something I’ll need to decide later.
For this race, though, the work had already been done.
I woke at 4:30am, ate a banana and a couple of onigiri, took my usual supplements and organised my nutrition for the race. I expected to be racing for somewhere between three-and-a-half and four hours, so I made sure I had enough gels and sodium to keep me moving.
I left the accommodation at 6am and walked towards the starting area. As always, there were nowhere near enough toilets, so by the time I had finished dropping my bags off and waiting in line for the toilet, there were only a few minutes remaining before the start.
Looking back from the front wave, the road was filled with thousands of excited runners. The Fuji Mountain Race is an incredibly competitive event, and you could feel the energy throughout the entire starting area.
Everyone knew exactly what was waiting above us.
Then the gun went off and race began!
My Strategy for the Fuji Mountain Race
The opening section of the Fuji Mountain Race is probably more runnable than many people expect. You don’t immediately begin hiking up volcanic rocks or scrambling towards the summit. The first eight to ten kilometres are mostly on paved roads, taking runners out of Fujiyoshida and gradually up towards the mountain.
The road is runnable, but it is also warm, exposed and continuously uphill.
Because the race is so competitive, many runners attack that opening section incredibly hard. Everyone is trying to gain position before the course narrows and the real mountain climbing begins.
My strategy was to be slightly more conservative.
Over the previous couple of months, I had been deliberately training legs in the gym twice each week, and spending plenty of time running and climbing in the mountains. I believed my strength would allow me to move much faster than the runners around me once the course became steep.
The plan was to let people go ahead on the road, keep my effort controlled and then begin catching everyone once we reached the mountain.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t jogging comfortably. My heart rate was still sitting at threshold effort at 170/175 beats per minute. But compared with the runners around me, I was definitely holding something back.
At the time, I thought I was racing intelligently.
Once we reached the mountain, it looked like the strategy was working perfectly.
Climbing Mount Fuji and Passing Through the Field
As the paved road ended and the course moved into the forest, the gradient became much steeper. This was the part I had been waiting for, and almost immediately, I began passing people.
My strategy was to run the first half of each steep zigzag, then switch into a strong power hike for the second half. That allowed me to keep moving quickly without letting my heart rate spike so badly that I would completely blow up.
I would run hard, switch to a power hike, turn the corner and repeat the process again.
It worked incredibly well.
On some of the zigzags, I was passing dozens of runners at a time. While many people had already been reduced to walking the entire climb, I could still alternate between running and hiking.
The lower sections of the mountain felt almost like moving through a forest or jungle. The trail was surrounded by thick green trees, and even though I was completely focused on the race, it was a very cool environment to climb through.
As we continued higher, the trees gradually disappeared and the terrain became rougher, steeper and much more exposed. The course eventually moved above the clouds and onto the volcanic sections of Mount Fuji.
At one point, we were also required to stop briefly and put on helmets before continuing towards the summit. It was quite funny to be racing as hard as possible, then suddenly have to pause and put on a helmet before heading further up the mountain.
Once I reached the sections above the clouds, the whole experience became quite surreal.
I wish I could say I spent some time appreciating the view, but I didn’t. When I’m racing, my attention becomes incredibly narrow. I’m thinking about foot placement and whether I can, or should, be pushing myself any harder.
Still, there were brief moments when I looked around and realised exactly where I was.
I was above the clouds, racing up the highest mountain in Japan and getting closer to the summit with every step.
It was absolutely beautiful.
The Strategy Worked, but It Was Still the Wrong Strategy
I continued passing runners for almost the entire climb.
From one perspective, my strategy had worked extremely well. I was moving strongly on the mountain, running sections that most could only walk and gaining dozens of positions as I made my way towards the summit.
The problem was that I had misunderstood where the greatest amount of time could actually be gained or lost.
Even though I was passing runners on each zigzag, the mountain was so steep that nobody could move particularly quickly. I might pass someone who was power hiking, but I wasn’t necessarily taking minutes out of them. In many cases, I was only gaining a few seconds.
Meanwhile, during the opening road section, I had allowed literally hundreds of runners to put a significant amount of time into me.
The road was where I had the freedom to run properly and move fast. Once we reached the steepest parts of Mount Fuji, the terrain itself placed a limit on how quickly anyone could climb.
I had correctly identified the mountain as one of my strengths, but I had placed too much importance on saving energy for it.
I was winning many small battles on the mountain, but I had already given away too much time during the runnable opening section, regardless of position. Does that make sense?
And, that was the real lesson from the race.
My execution was good and my climbing strength was exactly where I hoped it would be. The problem was that the overall strategy was aimed at the wrong part of the course.
Reaching the Summit in 3 Hours and 54 Minutes
I reached the summit of Mount Fuji in 3 hours and 54 minutes.
My legs felt heavy, and my body certainly knew that I had just run and climbed almost 3,000 metres up a bloody mountain. I had worked incredibly hard for nearly four hours, so naturally I was tired.
But I wasn’t completely spent.
I didn’t collapse, and I didn’t reach the finish feeling like I had given absolutely everything inside me. In fact, I still felt like I had a lot of energy left.
That was probably the clearest sign that my strategy hadn’t been aggressive enough.
I had spent too much of the opening section protecting energy for the mountain, only to reach the top and realise that I had never fully emptied the tank. The terrain had become so steep that there was no realistic way to use all of that remaining energy efficiently.
I couldn’t suddenly sprint up the final volcanic section just because I still felt strong. The mountain itself was limiting how quickly I could move.
I had hoped to finish around 25 or 30 minutes faster, and I knew almost immediately that I was capable of a better result.
But I didn’t feel like I had failed or lost in any way.
I love racing. I love the preparation, the travel, the atmosphere and the chance to test myself. Missing a target time doesn’t erase the experience or mean that the day was wasted.
I had just raced from Fujiyoshida to the summit of Mount Fuji in under four hours.
That’s still a pretty cool thing to be able to say.
I finished in 158th place out of 734 runners, which is a result I’m proud of. I know I can do better, but that’s something to work towards next year.
Getting Back Down the Mountain
One of the unusual things about the Fuji Mountain Race is that reaching the summit doesn’t mean the day is finished.
The finish line is at the top of Mount Fuji, which means you still need to get yourself back down.
I paused at the summit for a little while, but I didn’t spend much time taking photos or celebrating. I’m not always great at stopping and asking someone to capture the moment, so before long, I had started making my way back down towards the fifth station. Standard male experience lol.
It took a couple of hours to descend, and once I reached the area where our bags and transport were waiting, I immediately started eating whatever I could get my hands on.
Chocolate, large pack of Haribo gummies and anything else containing a serious amount of sugar and/or protien all disappeared very quickly.
From there, we caught the coach bus back down to the athletics ground. Most runners waited for onward transport, but I decided to walk back to my accommodation instead.
Apparently, racing to the summit of Mount Fuji and then spending another couple of hours descending hadn’t provided enough steps for one day.
On the way back, I stopped at Saizeriya for a very late lunch and ordered two pizzas and two pasta dishes.
All four dishes came to around ¥2,000, which is ridiculously cheap. Japan can feel incredibly expensive in some situations, but then you go to Saizeriya and eat enough food for a small family for the price of a couple of coffees in Australia.
I absolutely smashed the lot.
No regrets.
A Fuji Mountain Race Weekend I’ll Always Remember
After returning to my accommodation, I collected my things and began the train journey back towards Tokyo.
It had been a short trip, but it included everything I enjoy about these race weekends.
The result wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but the trip was still a complete success.
I tried my best and followed the strategy I had committed to. It simply turned out that the strategy wasn’t quite right.
That’s okay.
Next year, I’ll attack the runnable opening section with much more confidence. I’ll accept that the mountain will naturally slow everyone down and trust that my climbing strength will still be there when I need it.
Hopefully, that means returning for a little redemption race.
But regardless of the result, this is why I keep signing up for events like the Fuji Mountain Race.
The finishing time matters, and I will always want to perform as well as I possibly can. But the entire experience matters too.
The trains, the regional towns, the local food, the nervous energy at the start, the suffering during the race and the lessons that only become obvious once it’s finished are all part of the reason I love doing this.
Mount Fuji gave me a hard race, an honest lesson and a very good reason to come back next year.
And honestly, I already can’t wait.
Thanks so much for reading!
If you enjoy these race blogs and want to follow the rest of my training, racing and general "athletic" journey, you can find me on Instagram at @alextheathlete_ or visit alexschubach.com.
There are plenty more races, mountains and questionable pre-race bakery decisions still to come :)
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