japan running news

The National Women's Ekiden was the weekend's biggest race, but across the country four half marathons saw decently competitive men's action.

At Tochigi's Takanezawa Genki Up Half Marathon, as in the last few years Hakone Ekiden runner-up Aoyama Gakuin University ran its B-team of Hakone non-starters, this year with company from the team that beat it, Tokai University. AGU swept the top ten, first-year Takayuki Iida taking the top spot in 1:03:10 with teammate Shuya Iwami also getting under 64 minutes. Tokai seemed to treat the day more as a workout, but head coach Hayashi Morozumi, 52, took the chance to get in on the action too, running the 10 km division in 43:04.

In Tokyo, the High Tech Half Marathon celebrated its 20th running with the edition of a marathon division. Independent Hideyuki Ikegami (Aminosaurus) won the men's half in 1:05:08. Club runner Eri Suzuki (Noshiro Yamamoto T&F Assoc.) ran the fastest women's time of the weekend, 1:19:34, to win…

As championship ekiden season wraps up Japan’s athletes have started the transition to the winter road season, with four decently competitive half marathons highlighting the first half of January.

At the hilly Okukuma Half Marathon, locally-based Africans Jeremiah Thuku Karemi (Toyota Kyushu) and Melaku Abera (Kurosaki Harima) duked it out one-on-one, Karemi through in a series of surges in the last 5 km before breaking away decisively with 1 km to go. Crossing the finish line in 1:01:48, Karemi took nearly two minutes off the course record with Abera just under 62 for 2nd.

2nd on the Hakone Ekiden’s Seventh Stage less than two weeks ago, Masanori Sumida (Nittai Univ.) outran corporate league competition Taku Fujimoto (Toyota) and Shohei Kurata (GMO) to take the top Japanese spot at 4th in 1:03:11. Spending most of the race behind a pack led by 2015 National Univeristy Half Marathon champion Tadashi Isshiki (GMO) and 2:07:39 marathoner Masato Imai (Toyota Kyushu), Yuki Kawauchi (Sai…

by Brett Larner

Following the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden and Jan. 2-3 HakoneEkiden, the year's first full weekend of road racing included at least four major half marathons across the country.

きょう、げんきあっぷはーふまらそんはしりました!
たいむべすとでました! pic.twitter.com/2fcLzcZCB1 — Stanley (@stanleysiteki) January 8, 2017
At Tochigi's Takanezawa Genki Up Half Marathon, Kenyan Stanley Siteki, a Tokyo Kokusai University teammate of Hakone anchor stage "phantom winner"Akito Terui, outran Hakone champion Aoyama Gakuin University's alternates and B-team memeber to win in 1:03:20.  Last year's Takanezawa winnerAritaka Kajiwara was 4th in 1:03:45, exactly a minute slower than his 2016 course record.

In Tokyo, the High-Tech Half Marathon, a rebranded version of the popular Mari Tanigawa Half Marathon, saw former JR Higashi Nihon runner Shusei Ohashi win the men's race in 1:05:29.  Eri Suzuki, at 5th the top Japanese woman in last month's Honolulu Marathon, won the women's race in 1:…