Last year's McGrath Launceston Running Festival Peppers Silo Half Marathon in Tasmania, Australia shaped out into a great Australia vs. Japan dual meet , with Jessica Stenson outrunning Yumi Yoshikawa to take the women's title in a 1:09:51 CR, and Teikyo University school record holder Teruki Shimada executing a tactically brilliant race to drop Isaac Heyne , then-NR holder Brett Robinson , and Teikyo teammate Jinya Ozaki for the win in 1:01:12, just a second off the Australian all-comers record. Marathon NR holder Andy Buchanan took that record down to 1:01:08 at the Gold Coast Half a month later, but its chances of surviving this weekend aren't looking good. Shimada leads last year's top 4 back to Launceston this year, and there's a lot of tough new competition. 2025 National Corporate Half winner Tsubasa Ichiyama , Australia's Haftu Strintzos , new Teikyo record holder Yuta Asakawa and American Ethan Shuley have all run faster that Buchanan's rec...
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In both of the amateur-oriented clubs I coach in Tokyo, one a paid-membership organization, the other sponsored by one of the major makers, the large majority of members are people who had never run or had not run seriously/run a marathon prior to the onset of Tokyo. That's also the case for most of the other paid and maker-sponsored clubs which continue to spring up across Japan. Much of the growth sector of the industry here is geared toward the beginner. It's possible that many of them had always wanted to run, if that's what you are suggesting, but Tokyo was the catalyst that brought them all into the sport in my experience here.
--Wesleyan grad