Daniel Njenga is a longtime member of the Yakult corporate team, formerly as an athlete and currently as part of its coaching staff. On June 8 Kenyan media published a detailed article credited to Peter Mwangi claiming that Njenga had been kidnapped during a carjacking two days earlier while picking up his daughter from school. Longtime Njenga associate Brendan Reilly tweeted a link to the article, but after retweeting it in Japanese JRN received a tweet from a Yakult runner saying that he had talked to Njenga, who was at home as usual. The Yakult athlete subsequently deleted the tweet, but JRN confirmed with another source that Njenga is safe at home and that the article by Mwangi is a fabrication.
When the National University Half Marathon was canceled in 2011 after the massive earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan 2 days before the race, JRN talked to the New York Road Runners about bringing 2 collegiate runners to the United Airlines NYC Half Marathon the next weekend as a show of support. It wasn't possible to pull it together in the immediate aftermath of the disasters, but a year later we brought 2 young 2nd-years from Hakone Ekiden CR breaker Toyo University , Kento Otsu and Yuta Shitara , who had been the top 2 Japanese collegiate finishers at the Ageo City Half Marathon in November before Hakone. Shitara ran 1:01:48, at the time the fastest-ever by a Japanese man on U.S. soil, with Otsu running a solid 1:03:15. Thanks to that great start the Ageo-NYC partnership became a regular thing, and except for the pandemic it's continued every year since, expanding this year to June's New York Mini 10 km when 2 runners from Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden runne...
Comments