Talento Hazama Kampei (59) has completed the second major step in his mammoth Earth Marathon. An experienced endurance runner, he is expecting to spend at least two years becoming the first person to run and sail around the globe. The first leg of his journey started on December 17, when he set out on foot from Osaka and ran about 600km to Kamogawa in Chiba Prefecture. He set sail from there on New Year’s Day on a journey across the Pacific by yacht with his former manager Higa Yoshiyuki (46). 70 days and 12,710km later they landed at Long Beach in California on Tuesday, though Higa revealed that the day before, Kampei had been on the verge of giving up. “I’ve had enough. I’m going crazy and I’m going to make an announcement once we hit land,” he said. But after talking it over for several hours with Higa, he agreed to at least carry on to the next step. Kampei was in tears as he was greeted by his wife Mitsuyo, and they headed off to enjoy a yakiniku meal in Los Angeles. The next step in his journey will be to run across the U.S. arriving in New York around the end of June. Follow Kampei’s journey in his bilingual video blog: earth-marathon.com.
• Actress Itoh Maiko (44) was briefly hospitalized yesterday. She suffers from low blood pressure and was having feinting spells at her home in Tokyo yesterday. Her husband took her by taxi to a nearby hospital, where doctors told her the problem was exhaustion due to overwork. She was put on an I.V. and released last night. Just the day before, Itoh announced on a live morning show that she had got married back in January. The media attention and flood of emails following the announcement no doubt affected her condition.