japan running news

2010 Hokuren Distance Challenge Shibetsu Meet - Top Finishers
click here for complete results
Men's 10000 m
1. Nahom Mesfin (Ethiopia) - 28:07.80
2. Yoshinori Oda - 28:20.09
3. Daisuke Shimizu - 28:29.85

Women's 5000 m
1. Kazue Kojima - 15:47.55
2. Mai Ito - 15:48.35
3. Chieko Kido - 16:03.16

Men's 5000 m A-heat
1. Takayuki Matsumiya - 13:39.75
2. Tsuyoshi Ugachi - 13:42.50
3. Ryo Kiname - 13:54.54

Men's 5000 m B-heat
1. Yushi Nowaki - 14:04.18
2. Yuki Moriwaki - 14:06.88
3. Jeon Eun Hoi (KOR) - 14:07.62

Women's 3000 m
1. Ayaka Mori - 9:26.39
2. Misaki Onishi - 9:27.06
3. Misako Suguro - 9:30.95

(c) 2010 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

by Brett Larner

The six-part Hokuren Distance Challenge series of summer meets got underway June 14 in Sapporo. Held in towns across Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido, the Hokuren Distance Challenge has become an important part of the calendar for the hundreds of university and corporate runners who relocate to Hokkaido for summer base training to escape the heat. Top results of this year's Sapporo Meet are reproduced below.

2010 Hokuren Distance Challenge Sapporo Meet - Top Finishers
click here for complete results
Men's 5000 m A-Heat
1. Edward Waweru (Kenya/Team NTN) - 13:25.18
2. Alex Mwangi (Kenya/Team YKK) - 13:42.50
3. Akihiko Tsumurai (Team Mazda) - 13:44.43
4. Satoshi Irifune (Team Kanebo) - 13:45.66
5. Norio Kamijo (Team Aichi Steel) - 13:55.00

Women's 5000 m
1. Felista Wanjugu (Kenya/Team Universal Ent.) - 15:15.27
2. Kazue Kojima (Team Toyota Jidoshoki) - 15:41.96
3. Risa Takenaka (Ritsumeikan Univ.) - 15:42.96
4. Maiko Kushima (Niigata Albirex AC) - 16:07.61
5.…

by Brett Larner

Ethiopian Nahom Mesfin (Team Kanebo) and 1500 m national record holder Fumikazu Kobayashi (Team NTN) got the track season started off with a duel over 1500 m at the Kanaguri Memorial Track Meet April 10 in Kumamoto. With a PB performance Mesfin came out a step ahead as both runners broke Kobayashi's 5 year old meet record. Kenyan Ann Karindi (Team Toyota Jidoshoki) fell 0.11 seconds short of the women's 1500 m meet record but still set a PB of 4:09.41 and beat national record holder and teammate Yuriko Kobayashi by 9 seconds.

The other meet record of the day came in the high school boys' 5000 m, where Takashi Ichida (Kumamoto H.S.) ran 14:11.75 to break the existing meet record by 6.5 seconds. The old record holder, Ikuto Yufu (Komazawa Univ.), made his university debut in the men's 5000 m where he was 8th in a creditable PB of 13:53.20. Kenyan Josephat Ndambiri (Team Komori Corp.) took an unsurprising win in the men's 5000 m as Kenyans went 1-2-3. On…

by Brett Larner

The 2009 Hokuren Distance Challenge Sapporo meet took place on June 6, the first in a six-part series of meets in June and July in towns across Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido. Hokkaido is a major summer training spot for Japanese professional and university teams, one of the only places in the country where summer temperatures allow quality workouts. The first half of the Hokuren Distance Challenge series in June serves as a tuneup each year for the National Track and Field Championships, while the July segment helps runners prepare for world-level events later in the summer.

At the Sapporo meet, the three heats of the men's 5000 m were all fast and competitive. Kyoto Sangyo University's Taiki Mitsuoka broke 14 to win the C-heat. The top eight men in the A-heat all ran PB times, with Team Kanebo's Shinji Kanagawa edging out Waseda University second-year Yuki Yagi for the win in 13:42.57. Yagi, the 2007 national high school 5000 m champion, was th…

by Brett Larner

As he kicks off his second year of professional running, Ethiopian steeplechase national record holder Yacob Jarso (Team Honda) continues to solidify his hold on the title of best African on the Japanese pro circuit. For the second time this month Jarso outkicked rivals Josephat Ndambiri (Team Komori Corp.) and Gideon Ngatuny (Team Nissin Shokuhin) to win, this time with an extended push over the last lap of the Hyogo Relay Carnival Grand Prix 10000 m in Kobe on Apr. 26. Strong winds and high temperatures following a storm front kept times comparatively slow, but although his winning time of 27:38.67 cleared the World Championships A-standard of 27:47.00 Jarso was unsatisfied. "In my country," he told reporters following the race, "this kind of time is not good enough to make the national team. I must try harder next time."

World Cross Country Championships team member Naoki Okamoto (Team Chugoku Denryoku) was the only Japanese runner to try to run …