japan running news

National records fell for the third meet in a row in the four-part Hokuren Distance Challenge series Wednesday in Fukagawa, Hokkaido. Longtime Japan resident Pauline Kamulu (Route Inn Hotels) had a shockingly good run in the women's 10000 m A-heat, following up her 1:06:56 bronze medal run at the Valencia World Half Marathon Championships by lopping over a minute off her 10000 m best and 9 seconds off the Japanese all-comers record with a 2018 world-leading time of 30:41.85.

Kamulu lapped the entire field, her nearest competitor Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) returning from a 2:23:46 marathon PB in Osaka in January to take 30 seconds off her own best in 32:13.87. Further back, Seul Ki Ahn broke the South Korean national record set 13 years ago in Fukagawa with a new mark of 32:33.61. Ahn's NR followed the 2:25:41 NR set by Do Yeon Kim at the Seoul International Marathon in March, a miniature renaissance in South Korea women's distance running.

The men's 10000 m A-heat was als…

Saturday’s main event was a time trial meet in remote Miyazaki, the Golden Games in Nobeoka. With a heavy emphasis on 5000 m, the biggest news of the day was split between the two men who ran 2:06 at Feburary’s Tokyo Marathon, national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda) and Hiroto Inoue (MHPS).

Having taken time off after Tokyo, Shitara returned to action in the lone 10000 m in Nobeoka but was unable to stay in the action, ultimately dropping out of the race won in 28:00.49 by local boy Shuho Dairokuno (Asahi Kasei). Inoue, for his part, rocketed back into post-Tokyo action with a 13:38.44 PB in the 5000 m A-heat, outkicking 10000 m national record holder Kota Murayama (Asahi Kasei) for the win.

Shitara and Inoue's results capped an interesting weekend for the current main four contenders for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic marathon team. Like Shitara, 5000 m national record holder Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project) was a DNF over 10000 m, opting to run Stateside at Stanford. Boston Marat…

Half marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara lived up to his pre-race words, running down everyone who stood between him and the finish line to bring Saitama Prefecture its second-ever national title at the 2018 National Men's Ekiden.

Defending champ Nagano, whose win last year gave it a record seven wins in the National Men's Ekiden's 21-year history, was the favorite for the win, its roster packed with members of 2017 National High School Ekiden winner Saku Chosei H.S. and 2017 Izumo Ekiden winner Tokai University. Shitara was unfazed, saying pre-race that he'd run down anyone within 50 seconds of him on the 13.0 km anchor stage.

Nagano started strong, taking 2nd on the opening leg behind a nearly record-setting run from Ryuto Igawa (Kumamoto). Hoping for its first-ever top-three finish Ibaraki was unexpectedly strong, 5th on the leadoff leg, overtaking Nagano on the Second Stage and then advancing to 1st on the Third Stage thanks to a strong run from 2018 Hako…

Entry lists are out for Japan's biggest and best road race, the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden. 21 university teams from around the Tokyo area will field ten runners from the sixteen on their entry list, each runner taking on roughly a half marathon length over the ten-stage race.

2017 Izumo Ekiden winner Tokai University is the class of the field, one of only five teams to enter all ten of its best athletes and the only one with ten-runner averages under 14 minutes for 5000 m, under 29 for 10000 m and 1:03 for the half marathon. At all three distances its averages are slightly better than Aoyama Gakuin University's were last year when AGU won its third-straight Hakone title, and no other school even comes closer over the most relevant distance, the half marathon. It has never won Hakone, but this year it's Tokai's race to lose.

AGU has been hit by injury troubles this year, losing in both Izumo and the National University Ekiden and missing several key members from its Hakon…

Riding a wave of rapid improvement since the start of the season, Kanagawa University pulled off a perfect race to beat favorites Tokai University and Aoyama Gakuin University and win its first National University Men's Ekiden Championships title since 1997 in one of the fastest times in event history.

Tokai beat defending national champion AGU at last month's Izumo Ekiden, and today's race was expected to be another head-to-head. But on the opening stage both were far from the front-end action. Likewise for #3-ranked Yamanashi Gakuin University, still on the mend from injuries to many of its best runners. In the absence of the three favorites, #4 through #7-ranked teams Komazawa University, Kanagawa, Waseda University and Toyo University formed a leading group from which 2015 national champion Toyo emerged as the front runner.

Tokai and AGU spent the next three stages working up to the lead group before both lost ground on the Fifth Stage and had to try to regain their f…

Following October's season-opening Izumo Ekiden and world record-breaking Yosenkai 20 km, the university men's ekiden season continues Sunday with the National University Men's Ekiden Championships. 12 top regional teams from across the country will face off with the 15 best in the Tokyo-centric Kanto Region on an 8-stage course from Nagoya to Mie totalling 106.8 km. TV Asahi will broadcast the complete race starting at 7:00 local time on Sunday. International viewers can try mov3.co for streaming, with other options to be found here.

At Izumo the up-and-coming Tokai University squad took down defending champion Aoyama Gakuin University, head coach Hayashi Morozumi's cross-country-based methodology having overtaken the innovative systematic approach of AGU's Susumu Hara that had made AGU into the dominant team of the era. AGU is likewise the defending champion at Nationals, but the longer average stage lengths at Nationals play to Tokai's strengths and it will…

Kanagawa's Tokai University outran two-time defending champion Aoyama Gakuin University to win the 2017 Izumo Ekiden, its first win at one of the Big Three university men's ekidens under head coach Hayashi Morozumi and Tokai's first Izumo title since 2007.

Formerly head coach at Nagano's Saku Chosei H.S. where he produced the fastest-ever all-Japanese high school team and standout Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project) on a cross-country based training regimen, since taking over at Tokai in 2011 Morozumi has set about systematically developing the Tokai program into one with the greatest depth in Japanese university running. On paper AGU had a slight advantage over Tokai over the first half of Izumo's six stages, but with Tokai's second half runners, including its top two men Shota Onizuka and Hayato Seki, ranked at the top of their stages AGU needed a decent lead by halfway to stand a chance.

From the start it wasn't to be. In hot and sunny conditions Tokai&#…

by Brett Larner
photo by Tsukasa Kawarai
video by Ekiden News

1500 m junior world record holder Ronald Kwemoi (Team Komori Corp.) made his claim to longer distances Saturday at western Tokyo's Hosei University, dominating his competition over the last lap to win his 10000 m debut in 27:33.94 at the Hachioji Long Distance meet.



Lacking some of the electricity of last year's Japanese national record shot, 24 athletes from four countries lined up in Hachioji's A-heat, some tuning up for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships, others chasing the 27:45.00 standard for the 2017 London World Championships. Normally reliable as a pacer, despite a perfect 2:46.00 opening kilometer Bedan Karoki (DeNA RC) struggled to keep it steady after just 3000 m. Some of the field went ahead of him for several laps before he rallied to take the field through 5000 m in 13:56.50, four seconds off target.

The pack stuck with him for another 2000 m before saying good…

by Brett Larner

優勝 青山学院大学#全日本大学駅伝#二冠pic.twitter.com/i4445kvkTb — EKIDEN News (@EKIDEN_News) November 6, 2016
Izumo Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University went one step closer to becoming just the fourth school in Japanese history to win the Big Three University Ekiden triple crown, running down unexpected challenger Waseda University on the anchor stage to win its first-ever National University Men's Ekiden Championships title.

Defending champ Toyo University came out swinging, putting its best runner, Hazuma Hattori, on first.  Hattori put Toyo 11 seconds out front, but without the talent this year to follow that up Toyo fell to 6th on the Second Stage and spent the rest of the eight-stage race struggling to stay in the six-deep bracket of teams that would score places at next year's Nationals.

Waseda, the last team to pull off the triple crown back in the 2010-11 season, was the next team into the first exchange zone 11 seconds behind Toyo, while heavy favorite Aoyama Gakuin…

by Brett Larner

Kicking off the 2016 Big Three University Ekiden season, the 6-stage, 45.1 km Izumo Ekiden played out almost exactly according to script, with defending champion Aoyama Gakuin University holding off the perfectly-matched Yamanashi Gakuin University and Tokai University on the second half of the anchor stage to win a second-straight title.

A moderate easterly wind meant slower times than last year on the first three and final stages.  Right from the start it was all Aoyama Gakuin, Yamanashi Gakuin and Tokai, given a push on the 8.0 km First Stage by Nittai University's Takumi Komatsu and Daiichi Kogyo University's Geoffrey Gichia, but by midway through the 5.8 km Second Stage Aoyama Gakuin's Kazuki Tamura and Tokai first-year Ryoji Tatezawa had opened a lead over Yamanashi Gakuin that lasted until the anchor stage.

In terms of the anchor stage Yamanashi Gakuin had the greatest advantage, with last year's stage winner Dominic Nyairo having beaten Aoyama G…

by Brett Larner

神野大地(コニカミノルタ)@赤坂5丁目ミニマラソン pic.twitter.com/sM95E0dMdN — EKIDEN_MANIA (@ekiden_mania) April 9, 2016
Hakone Ekiden Fifth Stage star Daichi Kamino made his pro debut for the Konica Minolta team in surprising style, running Saturday night as part of the 50th edition of the All-Star Kanshasai variety show's twice-annual Akasaka 5-Chome Mini Marathon.  Broadcast live during the show, the race covers four laps of a twisting 900 m course with a steep downhill start, two 180-degree turns, a 200 m-long uphill with a nearly 10% grade, and a section through the TBS studios in front of the hundred or so comedians and TV personalities assembled for the variety show.  Each edition features a well-known pro runner racing several dozen other comedians and celebrities, each carefully handicapped for the staggered start to make the outcome as close as possible.  Past editions have featured Olympic and World Championships medalists including Joan Benoit Samuelson, Masako Chiba, Meseret…