japan running news

Saturday night saw another round of mid-season track time trial meets across the country. Leading the way, Saku Chosei High School's Yuhi Nakaya ran the 5th-fastest time ever by a Japanese high schooler, 13:47.22, to take 4th as the top Japanese man behind Ethiopian duo Abiyot Abinet and Yeneblo Biyazen of the Yachiyo Kogyo corporate team and unattached Kenyan James Bunuka Ndiwa in the Heisei Kokusai University Time Trials men's 5000 m A-heat.

Former World Youth and World Junior Championships medalist William Malel (Honda) won the Heisei Kokusai 10000 m A-heat in 28:24.46, with Komazawa University grad Shun Inoura (Yachiyo Kogyo) 2nd in 28:28.49. Two Japanese men in the A-heat, Toshinori Watanabe (GMO) and Kazuki Muramoto (Sumitomo Denki) doubled after running in earlier heats of 10000 m.

Far to the south, the national champion Asahi Kasei corporate team ran almost its entire team in the 10000 m at the Miyazaki Time Trials meet. 2016 national XC champ Takashi Ichida took 1st …

http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20150211/ath15021105020001-n1.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

With his uphill Fifth Stage course record run putting Aoyama Gakuin University in position for the overall Hakone Ekiden win in January, Hakone's third "God of the Mountain" Daichi Kamino, a third-year, spent part of his rest day at Aoyama Gakuin's training camp at Miyazaki Prefecture Sports Park on Feb. 10 talking to Hakone Ekiden fan Tetsuya Utsumi, 32, of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team who are also training at the Sports Park.

After his Hakone course record, another outstanding performance at January's National Men's Ekiden and a 1:01:21 PB at the Feb. 1 Marugame Half Marathon, Kamino is now completely focused on winning the Mar. 1 National University Half Marathon Championships in Tachikawa, Tokyo.  After Aoyama Gakuin's Hakone win Kamino and the rest of the team were busy dealing with Hakone Fever throughout January, but, he said of his day-to-…