Yamada and Yoshizumi Win Fuji Mountain Race

Starting in front of Fujiyoshida City Hall in Yamanashi prefecture, the 72nd Fuji Mountain Race took place July 26 with 4043 people entered in its summit and Fifth Stage divisions. Due to bad weather at Mt. Fuji's peak the summit division was cut off at the Fifth Stage, covering the same 15 km course with 1480 m elevation gain as the Fifth Stage division.

Yuki Yamada (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) won the summit division race for the first time in 1:17:26, two-time women's champion Yuri Yoshizumi (Medifoam) making it three in a row in 1:37:23. Takuya Saito (Nichizei Business) and Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL) topped the men's and women's Fifth Stage division races, Saito winning for the first time in 1:22:10 and Yoshida running 1:37:10 to win for the second year.

The winner of the men's Fifth Stage race last year, Yamada was set to take on the summit race for the first time this year. Disappointed at having to settle with a win over a course cut off at the Fifth Stage, he said, "I achieved my goal of winning against a high-level field, but my real goal was to beat them to the peak. I guess I'll have to do that next year."

A member of the Comody Iida corporate team until last summer, Yamada entered Tokyo Nogyo University at age 21 at the start of the academic year this spring. He hopes to run the Hakone Ekiden. "I want to run the Hakone Fifth Stage," he said. "I'm good at uphill running and like doing it, so that's what I want to do."

Aiming to be a legitimate contender at the very top of the international skyrunning and mountain running circuit, even with the course cut short at the Fifth Stage Yoshizumi beat 2nd place by 8:26 to score her third-straight women's summit division title. "It's too bad we couldn't go all the way to the peak, but I'm happy to win for a third time," she said. "I gave it my best today."

Yoshizumi started skyrunning in 2016. Now 33, this year she is competing seriously in the VKWC series, the world series of skyrunning. So far she has scored two 2nd place finishes and one 4th place, altogether ranking her 2nd in the world this season. In September she has two more races in Switzerland and France. "September is the main event," she said. "Winning today was a big boost."

72nd Fuji Mountain Race

Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi, 7/26/19
complete results
summit division (cut off at Fifth Stage): 15 km with 1480 m elevation gain
Fifth Stage division: 15 km with 1480 m elevation gain

Men's Summit Division
1. Yuki Yamada - 1:17:26
2. Ruy Ueda - 1:18:40
3. Shun Gorotani - 1:20:04
4. Christian Mathys (Switzerland) - 1:21:15
5. Suguru Emoto - 1:23:39

Women's Summit Division
1. Yuri Yoshizumi - 1:37:23
2. Mina Ogawa - TBC
3. Yuko Tateishi - 1:45:49
4. Maki Ogihara - 1:46:17
5. Mitsuko Hirose - 1:48:19

Men's Fifth Stage Division
1. Takuya Saito - 1:22:10
2. Yuki Inoshita - 1:25:26
3. Tatsuya Itagaki - 1:26:07

Women's Fifth Stage Division
1. Kaori Yoshida - 1:37:10
2. Reiko Kobayashi - 1:39:35
3. Yoshimi Tanaka - 1:42:19

source article:
https://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2019/07/27/kiji/20190726s00062000615000c.html
translated and edited by Brett Larner

Everything You Need to Know About the 2026 Hakone Ekiden

The Hakone Ekiden is the world's biggest road race, 2 days of road relay action with Japan's 20 best university teams racing 10 half marathon-scale legs from central Tokyo to the mountains east of Mount Fuji and back. The level just keeps going higher and higher , hitting the point this year where there are teams with 10-runner averages of 13:33.10 for 5000 m, 27:55.98 for 10000 m, and 1:01:20 for the half marathon. It's never been better, and with great weather in the forecast it's safe to say this could be one of the best races in Hakone's 102-year history, especially on Day One. If you've seen it then you know NTV's live broadcast is the best sports broadcast in the world, with the pre-race show kicking off at 7:00 a.m. Japan time on the 2nd and 3rd and the race starting at 8:00 a.m. sharp. If you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it on TVer starting at 7:50 a.m. on the 2nd , and again at 7:50 a.m. on the 3rd . There's even a 2-hour high...

Long Time Coming - Akira Akasaki and Haruka Onodera's Road to the 2022 United Airlines NYC Half

Back in pre-pandemic days Akira Akasaki and Haruka Onodera were still in college, Akasaki at Takushoku University and Onodera at Teikyo University . At the 2019 Ageo City Half Marathon they frontran most of the race together, dead set on finishing in the top two Japanese collegiate spots to win invitations to the 2020 United Airlines NYC Half. For Akasaki it had already been a year and a half wait. Inspired by Kenta Murayama 's 1:00:57 5th place in finish in New York in 2017 and Kei Katanishi 's 7th-place in 2018, Akasaki went for it his junior year in his debut at the 2018 Ageo Half . "Coming up to 10 km I was in the lead pack and feeling good, so I knew I had a shot at going to New York and got pretty excited," he said. But right after the 10 km turnaround point he tripped and fell, and by the time he was back up the lead group was out of range. He finished 20th in 1:03:07, over a minute and a half behind top Japanese university man Ken Nakayama . "I was f...

My Training for 1:00:44

Hi, I'm Ayumu Kobayashi . Today I'm going to write about this year's National Corporate Half Marathon and the training I did for it. I hope other runners will find it even a little bit helpful. At the Corporate Half on Feb. 13 I was 10th in 1:00:44. My goal had been to run 61 minutes, so I hit that target. My Training Menu In January I ran a total of 681 km. Key workouts: Jan. 11: 1000 m x 5 at 2:50/km Jan. 12: 22.5 km Jan. 15: 9 km variable pace Jan. 17: 25 km Jan. 24: 1000 m x 8 at 2:52/km Jan. 27: 1 km + 4 km + 2 km Jan. 30: 16 km at 3:18/km avg. In January I was tired from the New Year Ekiden and had some knee pain after it, so I just jogged for 10 days until I started doing workouts again on the 11th. That's why I only ran 681 km for the month. But even on the jog days I was aware that I had the Corporate Half coming up, so I was doing around 30 km. It's pretty meat and potatoes, but I think it was really important. February (training for the 10 days before...

japan running news

Search This Blog