japan running news

One of the Tokyo area's most popular races, the Ome 30 km and 10 km Road Race has long had a relationship with the U.S.A.'s Boston Marathon with top-placing runners from each event being invited to the other. For the first time in recent memory Ome will bring an American woman instead of a man. Off a 2:34:53 in Boston last year Danna Herrick will face 2015 Rotterdam Marathon winner and two-time Ome champ Asami Kato (Panasonic) and, fresh from a win at Sunday's Osaka Half Marathon, Maki Ashi (Kyudenko) in her 30 km debut.

On the men's side 2:12 marathoner Naoki Okamoto (Chugoku Denryoku) and the Koichi Morishita-coached Kento Otsu (Toyota Kyushu) top the bill. Track specialist Naohiro Domoto (JR Higashi Nihon) and university men Daisuke Horiai (Komazawa University) and Kota Oki (Waseda University) round out the invited athlete list with their 30 km debuts, with deeper competition to be expected at the front end of the general division.

The top Japanese female and male …

http://athleticsasia.org/index.php/k2-component/69-21st-asian-athletics-championships-2015-distance-running-preview

by Brett Larner


The record-breaking 2009 Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the deepest 20 km road race in history.

The Kanto Regional University Athletics Federation has released the entry lists for the Oct. 15 Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, a 20 km university men's road race qualifier for the Jan. 1-2 Hakone Ekiden.  Outside the Olympics the two-day, twenty-team, ten-stage Hakone relay is road racing's biggest spectacle, an event with viewership in the tens of millions and the kind of popular enthusiasm the World Marathon Majors dream of.  Of all the things obscured behind the cultural insularity of the Japanese running system Hakone is the biggest loss to the sport as a whole, a gripping, high-level race that never lets up over the course of twelve hours and which, with superb production values, could give clues on how to popularize road racing among non-runners worldwide if it were accessible overseas.

The top ten universities at each year's Hakone are seeded for the following year, free…

by Brett Larner

A midsummer tuneup for corporate, university and amateur teams training in northern Japan to escape the heat and humidity, the Towada Hachimantai Ekiden saw its 64th running on Aug. 7.  Team Honda, led by 2010 Tokyo Marathon winner Masakazu Fujiwara, took the team title as it covered the five stage, 73.8 km course in 3:48:38.

Honda started the race in 3rd and gradually worked its way to within 21 seconds of the lead by the end of Fujiwara's stage second-best run on the 16. 3 km Third Stage.  Fourth Stage runner Minoru Ikebe ran a stage best time to overtake leader Nihon University for 1st.  Honda anchor Takashi Toyoda was only sixth-fastest on the brutal uphill Fifth Stage but still held on for the win after Nihon's anchor Shingo Hayashi struggled and finished 12th on stage time.

Hayashi in turn barely held off Toyo University's brilliant uphill specialist Ryuji Kashiwabara, who took Toyo from 8th to 3rd and from nearly five minutes off the lead to less th…

by Brett Larner
photos by Daniel Seite



Takushoku University frosh John Maina, one of two Kenyans joining the team this season, led Takushoku to a surprise team win at the 87th Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai 20 km qualifier Oct. 16 in Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park. Despite hotter than usual temperatures and a course change which added challenging hills and several sharp corners in the final two km, Maina won overall in 58:23 to become only the third man to ever break 58:30 at the Yosenkai.
John Maina and Benjamin Gando at 6 km.

After a slow first km in 3:03, Maina effortlessly pressed the pace as Nihon University's Benjamin Gando struggled to maintain contact. Gando attacked just past 10 km but faded in the final quarter to a 58:43 runner-up spot. In Maina Takushoku may have found a deep talent. With him, fellow Kenyan recruit Duncan Mozay and new head coach Toru Okada, who previously coached Asia Univ. to the 2006 Hakone Ekiden win, Takushoku could be one of the surprises of January's Hako…

by Brett Larner

In his first serious race since joining Saitama-based Team Honda in April, 2008 World XC Junior Champion Ibrahim Jeilan (Ethiopia) ran a virtually solo 27:12.43 for 10000 m at the 210th Nittai University Time Trials in Yokohama. Accompanied partway by countryman Dejene Asefa (Ethiopia/Team Kurosaki Harima), Jeilan ran the second half of the race solo to clock the 6th-fastest time of the year worldwide. Although not a PB, it was Jeilan's fastest time since running just off the world junior record in 2006 when he recorded his 27:02.81 best. It was also 10 seconds faster than Kenyan Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko) ran a day earlier to win the 2010 National Jitsugyodan Track and Field Championships.

Honda assistant coach Yosuke Osawa told JRN, "Ever since he ran 27:02 as a teenager Jeilan has lost a bit of ground each year, but since arriving in Japan in April he has been making a comeback. This result shows what potential he's still got. The New Year Ekiden this yea…

by Brett Larner



Waseda University first-year Shota Hiraga, a star member of 2008 high school national champion Saku Chosei H.S.'s winning team, continued his excellent season with a 1:03:44 win at the Ageo City Half Marathon on Nov. 15. As the unofficial selection race in which Hakone Ekiden-qualified university teams' rank-and-file runners prove to their coaches that they are worthy of joining their squads' stars in the prestigious January Hakone race, Ageo consistently features the deepest, toughest field of any half marathon in the world. For proof, take a look at JRN's 2008 and 2007 Ageo reports.

This year a passing front brought cloudless skies and freak temperatures well over 20 degrees without any of the wind which both cooled and battered the women later in the day at the Yokohama International Women's Marathon. The unseasonal heat affected times across the board. Hiraga's strong 1:03:44 performance was the slowest winning time in Ageo history and only on…