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Showing posts with the label Ken Nakamura

In Memory of Ken Young

I'm very saddened to hear of the passing of Ken Young, founder of the Association of Road Racing Statisticians. If you're not familiar with Ken or the ARRS, Amby Burfoot's 2016 piece on him in Runners World, The Endless Toil of the Big Data Guy, says everything you need to know. Back in the early days of JRN, Ken was one of several industry people to contact me after I published JRN's first hit article, 397 Under 70 Minutes: The 20th Ageo City Half Marathon. He wanted verification of the results and, seemingly having missed Ageo before, asked me to research its history and past results.

That soon led to me transliterating results from Japanese road, track and cross-country races for him on a weekly basis, results otherwise unavailable to the outside world except for some already covered by Japanese contributors Ken Nakamura and Shigenobu Ota. For the last 10 years I've spent about 10 hours on average every Sunday night and Monday morning, sometimes Tuesday, someti…
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'Kisorio Versus Mogusu - Preview of Marugame Half Marathon'

http://www.iaaf.org/Mini/LRR12/News/NewsDetail.aspx?id=63475

To Ken Nakamura's preview of Sunday's 66th Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon I would add mention of sub-28 World Championships 10000 m runner Yuki Iwai (Team Asahi Kasei) tuning up for his marathon debut at the Tokyo Marathon after a good New Year Ekiden run, and the crop of top Hakone Ekiden university runners in the field.  Keita Shitara (Toyo Univ.) is the most worth watching, making his official half marathon debut after having run 1:08:04 on the 23.2 km Second Stage at Hakone, equivalent to a 1:01:54 half marathon at a flat conversion.  Last year's #2 Japanese half marathoner, Hiromitsu Kakuage (Komazawa Univ.) returns along with his teammate, Hakone Ekiden Ninth Stage winner Shinobu Kubota,, whose 1:09:04 clocking for 23.2 km at Hakone suggests mid-62 capability.  Waseda University's strong Shuhei Yamamoto and Hiroyuki Sasaki are scheduled to make their half marathon debuts, and Kokushikan Univ…
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Wanjiru in the Words of Those Who Knew Him

Samuel Kamau Wanjiru, 1986-2011

 I've put together this collection of quotes charting the life, career and environment of the late Samuel Wanjiru over the years by those who knew him and helped make him what he was, including Tsutomu Akiyama, Stephen Mayaka, Koichi Morishita, Takao Watanabe and Wanjiru himself. Wanjiru's achievements made him a great source of pride in Japan, as close as one can come to being considered one of their own.



"Wanjiru arrived in Japan on May 4, 2002. I was the one who went to pick him up. When he came he was only so-so, but even in high school he became strong at 10000 m, and at the half-marathon too. Wanjiru succeeded at the marathon because he was trained in Japan. He would never have been able to do this kind of running if he had stayed in Kenya. Athletes raised in Kenya don’t have the same kind of mental toughness. They come here and they learn discipline, focus, they begin to understand gaman: absolutely do not make a move before 30 km,…
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'Summary of Post-Race Press Conference at Tokyo Marathon'

Excellent quotes from 2011 Tokyo Marathon winners Hailu Mekonnen and Tatiana Aryasova along with top Japanese finishers Yuki Kawauchi and Noriko Higuchi, thanks to Ken Nakamura:

http://www.all-athletics.com/en-us/2011-02-28/summary-post-race-press-conference-tokyo-marathon

This translated article also has some good quotes from Kawauchi and one priceless piece of info about his World Championships plans:

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/sports/news/20110228p2a00m0na016000c.html
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'Morocco's Adil Annani Wins Beppu-Oita Marathon'

http://iaaf.org/LRR09/news/newsid=49180.html

Ken Nakamura's excellent IAAF report on the 2009 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, linked above, covers much of what I would otherwise say. One small error in his report is that Seiji Kobayashi's PB performance gives him 'littlechance' of being selected for the Berlin World Championships, not 'a little chance.' Kobayashi ran Beppu-Oita, aka Betsudai, after finishing 20th in Fukuoka this past December in 2:20:46.

Adil Annani has apparently been coached by the great Moroccan marathoner Abdelkader El Mouaziz since 2007. At the 11 km water station Annani missed his special drink. Looking back over his shoulder he crashed straight on into the next table, falling forward onto the table. It evidently didn't take much out of him.

Another detail worth mentioning was the strong marathon debut by Yuki Kawauchi (Gakushuin Univ.), one of the top runners on this year's Hakone Ekiden6th stage and the 3rd place finisher at the 2008…
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