japan running news

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translated and edited by Brett Larner

Note: These blog posts were written by an athlete who ran on the Hakone Ekiden's Kanto Region University Select Team twice before going on to become one of Japan's most prominent distance runners and all-time great marathoners.  He semi-anonymously runs a blog called "The Former Hakone Ekiden Kanto Region University Select Team Member Blog" dedicated to preserving the Select Team from elimination by the powers that be. These posts are in response to the KGRR's decision to reintroduce the Select Team to Hakone in 2015 under a different name without counting its results.

According to the news on the net, the "Kanto Regional University Select Team" is going to be resurrected next year with its name changed to "Kanto Region University Student United Team."  In Febru…

by Brett Larner

A select team of corporate runners from the East Japan region outran strong corporate teams Honda and Fujitsu along with 2012 Hakone Ekiden winners Toyo University to take the overall win at the 65th running of the Towada Hachimantai Ekiden, Aug. 7 in Kazuno, Akita.

Toyo sophomore Masaya Taguchi took down all comers on the First Stage, opening a gap of 15 seconds over the 13.6 km leg.  His teammate Keita Shitara broke the course record on the Second Stage, covering 12.4 km in 37:04, but from behind him the East Japan team's Johnson Kiumbani, regularly with Team Konica Minolta, blazed a 36:17 record to put East Japan ahead by 22 seconds.  From there the team never looked back as they widened their lead to a final winning margin of 2:07 by the end of the 73.8 km race, clocking 3:43:10.

Toyo fell to 7th on the Third Stage after a poor run from Hiroaki Koike and remained around the same position the rest of the race, overtaken by five corporate teams but holding off co…

by Brett Larner




Mekubo Mogusu in the lead. Click image for video of the race.

One week after winning his third titles in the 1500 m and 10000 m events, setting a PB, meet record and Japanese university record of 27:27.64 in the latter, Yamanashi Gakuin University senior Mekubo Mogusu of Kenya broke his own course record to win the half marathon on the final day of the Kanto Regional University Track and Field Championships at Tokyo`s National Stadium.

The half marathon was contested over a ten-loop course. Beginning in the National Stadium, runners completed 1 km on the track before exiting the stadium for a hilly, twisting section on the roads. Runners then re-entered the stadium before beginning the next iteration of the road loop. The course is notoriously difficult; last year Mogusu set the course record of 1:03:10 in the midst of a year in which he broke one hour for the half marathon three times. This year competitors faced the additional challenge of rain and wind brought by the …