Skip to main content

Another Amateur Goes Sub-14 - Pre-Typhoon Saturday Night Track Action



A wet and windy Saturday night featured high-level track time trial action all across the country. With the approach of the powerful Typhoon #24 the Saga Long Distance Time Trials meet was canceled, leaving Kyushu's runners home to wait the storm out. To the northeast, Hiroshima's Chugoku Jitsugyodan Long Distance Time Trials meet was far enough away to still be ahead of the worst of the wind and rain. Takuya Fujikawa (Chugoku Denryoku) ran the fastest 5000 m time their in 13:55.73, with up-and-coming marathoner Kohei Futaoka (Kyudenko) leading the 10000 m results in 29:12.00.

Further to the northwest, Yuma Hattori (Toyota) returned from a solid 1:01:40 PB at the Czech Republic's Usti nad Labem Half Marathon two weeks ago to win the Tokamachi Distance Carnival's 10000 m. Hattori outkicked Kenyan teammate David Muhuhu (Toyota) to win in 28:39.57, the fastest time by a Japanese runner in Tokamachi's 30-year history. His alma mater Toyo University was a major presence, with a large share of its roster tuning up for next weekend's season-opening Izumo Ekiden with a controlled effort group run that saw seven of its runners go in the 29-minute range.

One of Toyo's biggest competitors at Izumo, four-time Hakone Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University stayed on familiar ground to tune up, running a hand-timed intramural 5000 m time trial on its campus track. 18 team members cleared 14:10, 8 of them beating their official PBs and third-year Takato Suzuki led the way in 13:58.3.

 The weekend's fastest results came at Tokyo's Setagaya Time Trials meet. Newcomer Samuel Masai (Kanebo) led the men's 5000 m A-heat in 13:29.84, with half marathon and marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda) making a comeback to racing in the top Japanese finishing spot in 13:51.79 after missing the Berlin Marathon earlier this month. Shitara plans to return to the roads at November's Ageo City Half Marathon.

Full-time working amateur Daisuke Momozawa generated some news when he finished 9th behind Mutai and Shitara in a PB 13:55.84. A 2015 graduate of Yamanashi Gakuin University, Momozawa took a job with the Sun Kogyo manufacturing company in Nagano and continued to train outside his working hours. Now 25, this was his first time breaking 14 minutes. Like another good full-time working amateur who broke 14 post-graduation, Momozawa ran the Hakone Ekiden's downhill Sixth Stage during his university days.

Farthest from the typhoon's influence, the Premium Games in Sakata meet saw a little piece of history as third-year Ren Tazawa (Aomori Yamada H.S.) run 8:07.04 to win the men's 3000 m, the 5th-fastest mark ever by a Japanese high schooler. Luka Musembi (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) won the 5000 m in 14:02.10.

© 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Chepkirui Wins Nagoya Women's Marathon

Heavy-duty favorite Sheila Chepkirui took the win at Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon , pulling away after 30 km to cruise in for 1st in 2:20:40. Erratic pacing early saw the first and second groups only seconds apart for much of the first half of the race, the top group slower than planned and the 2nd group a bit ahead of schedule. At halfway in 1:10:37 the front group included Chepkirui, #2-ranked Ruti Aga and last year's runner-up Eunice Chumba , and Japanese contingent Sayaka Sato , Rika Kaseda , Natsuki Omori and Mao Uesugi . Omori was the first to drop, then Uesugi, then Aga, who ultimately dropped out before 30 km. When the pacers stopped at 30 km Chepkirui made a move that dropped Kaseda and strung out Chumba and Sato behind her, but all four came back together once before another surge put Kaseda away for good. As Chepkirui inched away Sato and Chumba passed each other repeatedly, and Chumba could only watch as the top Japanese runner got away from her again thi...
1 comment
Read more

Who's Running Tokyo Worlds?

The Japanese marathon teams will be the most prestigious ones to be on for September's Tokyo World Championships, and with Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon the window for Japanese athletes to get onto the JAAF's shortlist closed. Who's on it? The final decision won't be made until Mar. 26, but let's look through the selection criteria and see who's guaranteed, who's pretty likely, and who has a chance. 1. Marathon medalists at the Paris Olympics - There weren't any, so nobody makes the team this way. Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko) and Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) were the top placers, both of them running PBs in the Olympics to finish 6th. You'd think that would count for something a year later, but you'd think wrong. 2. JMC Series IV Champions - The top point scorers in the Japan Marathon Championship Series IV, which ran from April, 2023 to March, 2025, earn places on the marathon teams along with cash prizes. For women that's Yuka ...
1 comment
Read more

Tokyo Marathon Top Japanese Man Tsubasa Ichiyama Works 4 Days a Week, Walked On in College

38,000 people ran the 2025 Tokyo Marathon . Every runner had their own story, but one of the most special was Tsubasa Ichiyama (Sunbelx). Despite being on almost nobody's radar, he outran some of the best in the country to finish as the top Japanese man. Ichiyama ran most of the race in the 3rd pace group, going through halfway in 1:02:44 and 30 km in 1:29:13. When the pacers stopped, he showed what he could really do. "I'm not good at downhills, so in the first part it was hard to run smoothly," he said at the post-race press conference. "But after the downhill part ended I got into my rhythm, and I think that helped me over the 2nd half." After dropping Asian Games gold medalist Hiroto Inoue (Mitsubishi Juko) and others, he quickly bore down on the Japanese athletes who had gone out faster in the 2nd pace group. Overtaking Paris Olympics 6th placer Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko) and Yuhei Urano (Fujitsu), at 39.8 km he caught all-time Japanese #2 man Yohei I...
Post a Comment
Read more