japan running news

The New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championship kicks off 2025 early, with streaming starting at 9:00 a.m. local time January 1st and the race going off at 9:15. At 7 legs totaling 100 km it's the peak of the year for the corporate leagues, the reason they have teams and bring in Kenyans. Last year Toyota led from the Second Stage to the finish, outrunning 2022-2023 winner Honda and 2017-2020 winner Asahi Kasei to take the national title for the first time since 2016. How is Toyota looking this year? On the one hand they've picked up fresh incoming talent like last year's Komazawa University captain Mebuki Suzuki . On the other, some of its key players like Tomoki Ota and Ren Tazawa have been dealing with injury, and at November's Chubu Region qualifying race Toyota lost by a minute to Toyota Boshoku , who broke the Chubu CR. A lot of Honda's A-list was missing from its lineup at the East Japan Region qualifying race , where it was only 7th out...

We're deep into championship ekiden season. Over the last two weekends the six regions making up the corporate leagues held their qualifying races for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships. The New Year Ekiden is one of the only national-level championship ekidens that doesn't give its podium finishers auto-qualifying spots for the next year, meaning every team has to run the regional races every November. It's not hard to see how that eats into the fall marathon season and how doing it the same way they do for all the other big ekidens, including the corporate women's national championships later this month, and having the top teams auto-qualify, would open up the fall schedule and improve Japan's performances in men's marathoning. But it is what it is right now. In place of an auto-qualifying spot for podium finishers, the national corporate federation redistributes the wealth of qualifying slots available in each region based ...

On May 26 the Chudenko  corporate men's team posted video from their track season training camp in Sugadaira, Nagano, one of Japan's main training locales at around 1500 m elevation. Chudenko's roster includes 2:08:44 marathoner Naoki Aiba , 2:09:14 marathoner Kohei Futaoka  and 59:34 half marathoner Amos Kurgat . Workouts detailed in the video: Group morning jog at 4:10~4:20/km. 400 m x 10 for Aiba, Kurgat and Donald Mitei  with two Kenyan athletes from another team, building up from 64 to 61 sec with 65 sec walking recovery. The next day, 400 m x 10 by the rest of the team split into two groups. The next day, 25 km at 3:42/km. On the 7th day of the training camp, 1000 m x 8 targeting 2:45/km for Aiba, Kurgat and Mitei with the same two athletes from another team. Actual times are given on-screen. The rest of the team did 600 m x 10 and 400 m x 5, split into two groups, a fast group at 68 sec/lap and a slow group at 70 sec/lap. The final track workout at the camp was 200...

Qualification for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships wrapped up Sunday with the last four regional corporate ekidens. In the highly competitive Chubu Region race, Toyota , the winner the last 7 years, struggled when Bedan Karoki  finished only 8th on the Second Stage. Despite Toyota's fourth runner Tomoki Ota  making up a lot of the ground with a sensational 43:48 CR on his 15.5 km stage, almost a minute under the old record and 45:18 pace for 10 miles, Toyota faced pressure throughout the race from Toyota Boshoku . A 34:07 course record for the 11.8 km Seventh Stage by anchor Yuji Onoda  was enough to seal the win for Toyota Boshoku, finishing the 80.5 km race 39 seconds up on Toyota in 3:54:15.  Aichi Seiko  was the top team to miss the qualifying cutoff, almost two minutes behind the last qualifier, Chuo Hatsujo , in 3:59:13. Held simultaneously with the Chubu Region race, the Hokuriku Region saw an even closer margin of vict...

The regional qualifier for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden national championships, the Chugoku Corporate Men's Ekiden took place Nov. 10. Eight teams competed for the four places at the New Year Ekiden up for grabs. Aiming for a fifth-straight win, the Mazda team led from the start. On the Second Stage Chudenko overtook them for the top position, holding on to the lead through the Third and Fourth Stages. But with a stage record-breaking run on the Fifth Stage Mazda's Masatoshi Teranishi succeeded in turning the team's fortunes around, putting it in position for a first-ever fifth-straight Chugoku title and leading it on to the New Year Ekiden. Chudenko, Chugoku Denryoku and JFE Steel all likewise qualified. 58th Chugoku Jitsugyodan Ekiden Sera, Hiroshima, 11/10/19 8 teams, 7 stages, 80.8 km complete results Team Results  - top 4 qualify for New Year Ekiden 1. Mazda - 4:00:10 - CR 2. Chudenko - 4:02:35 3. Chugoku Denryoku - 4:03:51 4. JFE Steel - 4:06:13 -...

One of the highlights of the new year, the Chugoku Yamaguchi Ekiden took place Jan. 27, with the Mazda corporate team winning the open division for the fourth year in a row. Including the open, municipal and high school divisions a total of 46 teams took part in the Chugoku Yamaguchi Ekiden's 82nd running, covering 84.4 km in seven stages starting in front of Ube City Hall, passing the Yamaguchi Prefectural Government offices and finishing in front of Shunan City Hall. Mazda's Shiferaw Bekele set a new stage record of 43:35 on the 15.1 km First Stage, outrunning the Chudenko team's lead runner Amos Kipruto by 3 seconds and establishing a lead that was never broken all the way to the finish. In the high school division, 2018 National High School Ekiden champion Kurashiki H.S. of Okayama won for the second-straight year, with the Sera T&F Association team winning the municipal division for the first time thanks in part to stage record runs by its second man Jo...