japan running news

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translated and edited by Brett Larner

2014 Hakone Ekiden First Stage winner Hideto Yamanaka, a fourth-year at 2013 Hakone Ekiden champion Nittai University, has quit the school's ekiden team.  Left without its star runner, Nittai will shoot for its 68th-straight Hakone Ekiden appearance when it runs the Oct. 17 Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying race.

Yamanaka ran the Third Stage at the 2013 Hakone Ekiden as a first-year, playing a key role in Nittai's first overall Hakone win in 30 years.  As a second-year he won the 21.4 km First Stage in 1:01:25, with a 1:02:09 course record win two months later at the National University Half Marathon Championships cementing his position as a top-class collegiate athlete.  Shortly afterward, however, he suffered a long-lasting string of injuries that kept him out of competition throughout his third year until a surprise return at the start of his fourth year to win the 10000 m at M…

http://www.hochi.co.jp/sports/etc/20140821-OHT1T50125.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

University runners aiming for the Hakone Ekiden spend their harsh summers building a base of around 40 km a day.  They have a saying about the importance of their summer training camps: "Those who win the summer win the winter."  To protect its legacy of ten overall Hakone wins, the prestigious Nittai University is not afraid of new challenges that take it even beyond.

As usual, Nittai arrived in Yamagata on Aug. 8 for primary training at Zhao Onsen and Zhao Bodaira, breaking camp after morning practice on Aug. 18.  Team members had the rest of the day to spend as they like and to figure out how to get themselves to their scheduled assembly at Sendai Port at 6:30 p.m.  "If you can't think about everything for yourself as an athlete, you'll never be strong," says head coach Kenji Beppu, 48.  From Sendai the team boarded a ferry bound for Hokkaido, where it would g…

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20130508-OHT1T00165.htm

translated by Brett Larner

Tohoku High School will hold a welcoming event for incoming students on May 11 in Sendai.  Together with their friend and Tohoku head coach Takehiko Shibuya, 53, a number of coaches from top-finishing teams at this year's Hakone Ekiden will appear to take part in a panel discussion, including Kenji Beppu, 47, who led Nittai University to its first Hakone win in 30 years, runner-up Toyo University's Nao Sato, 60, and Takayuki Nakano of Teikyo University, whose 4th-place finish was its best showing since 2000.  Tohoku H.S. alumnus Hatsuo Okubo, 58, who won the Hakone Ekiden's uphill Fifth Stage all four years of his university career, will also appear.  The discussion of Hakone's run up the mountain should be a good one.

This year Tohoku's hopes are high with two superb athletes who ran well for Miyagi in last summer's National Junior High School Championships 3000 m enter…

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20130127-OHT1T00211.htm

translated by Brett Larner



On Jan. 27, 2013 Hakone Ekiden winners Nittai University held a victory parade in Aoba, Yokohama to celebrate their first Hakone title in 30 years.  35000 fans, the most ever for a Hakone victory parade, turned out to share the team's joy.  All ten members of this year's winning team including captain Shota Hattori road in three open cars along with head coach Kenji Beppu, with the Nittai brass band and cheerleaders riding behind the team in two four-ton trucks and the Booster Club in a bus.  People were lined up six-deep along both sides of the road for the entire 3.1 km parade route from Aobadai Station to the university's Kenshidai campus.  An organizer laughed, "There are so many people it's like a replay of the Hakone Ekiden.  I'm totally surprised.  Things are going to get out of hand!"

Riding in the lead car and carrying the victory banner, Hattori vowed t…