japan running news

Kokushikan University held its season-opening time trial meet Mar. 31 at its Tama Field track facility. Members of four-time Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University competed in the 1500 m, with first-year Keita Yoshida leading the team in 3:50.77. Breaking through at this year's Hakone with a Seventh Stage record, third-year Keisuke Hayashi ran 3:53.17. Both third-years, Sixth Stage winner Yuji Onoda ran 3:58.09 and Second Stage winner Homare Morita ran 3:58.30. Head coach Susumu Hara, 51, was pleased with the shakeout ahead of outdoor season, commenting, "Times ended up being better overall than last year."

Surpassing all the Aoyama Gakuin runners to take the spot in 3:48.47 was incoming Kokushikan Kenyan Vincent Laimoi. Laimoi arrived in Japan in mid-March, running a PB 13:43.20 in his first race in Japan, the 5000 m at a meet at Kokushikan on the 25th. Running the 1500 m for the first time ever, Laimoi showed considerable potential. Together with current team mem…

After a seven-week break from the marathon, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) scored his third-straight marathon win, second-straight course record and came just shy of a third-straight negative split as he ran a completely solo 2:11:46 to take almost six minutes off the Kitakyushu Marathon course record. Following up on negative split wins at December's Hofu Yomiuri Marathon and January's Marshfield New Year's Day Marathon, the latter a course record by half an hour, Kawauchi was on his own in the first 100 m in Kitakyushu and never looked back.

In the hilly first 10 km his pace fluctuated from high-2:12 to high-2:10, but once Kawauchi got into the flatter section of the course he settled out on track for a high-2:11 to low-2:12 time. After a 1:05:51 split at halfway he slowed slightly on the outbound trip to the turnaround near 31 km, but picking it up again after 35 km he marked a 6:34 from 40 km to the finish to stop the clock at 2:11:46,  a 1:05:55 second half …

In a rare reversal of Day One standings, Aoyama Gakuin University ran down Toyo University early in on Day Two to win its fourth-straight Hakone Ekiden title. At both the Izumo Ekiden and National University Men's Ekiden this season, Toyo struggled to cope with the absence of its entire senior class due to injury, running up front much of the way but lacking the depth to keep the lead in the final stages. Hakone played out like an opera-scale version of the same familiar story, its brilliant Day One win backlit by the headlights of rapidly approaching fate.

Second on Day Two's opening stage, the 20.8 km Sixth Stage with around 800 m elevation loss, both of the last two years, AGU 3rd-year Yuji Onoda just missed the course record en route as he ran down Toyo's Shunsuke Imanishi and put AGU almost a minute ahead by the time he handed off. AGU's next two runners Keisuke Hayashi and Yuta Shimoda both won their stages, Hayashi, a relative unknown on the roster, running 1:0…